Part One: Why You Must Read Through the First Draft before Editing
Have your first draft done? Good! Here’s what to do next.
First, you must print it out. I know everyone hates to use paper these days but I’m sorry, you just need a hard copy for this.
Now, take a pad and a pencil or pen, and sit down to read it through. Since you were writing quickly, in flow, and you probably didn’t even write transitions (That’s good! Flow writing comes first.) you will immediately see a lot of things that need fixing. Resist the temptation to fix them now. You need to read through the whole manuscript first. That’s why you have a pad. Make a note on the pad and on the page (See? This is why you print out. Now you have a page number to write down.) and keep reading. You want to stay in editing mode and read through the entire manuscript first, then go back and make the changes.
If you go back into the manuscript and write changes, your mind switches back out of “edit” mode and into “flow” mode. It can’t do both at once. And then you are stuck in the trees again, without the view of the forest you need, to complete the edit of the first draft.
Once you have read and have all your notes with page numbers, it will be time to go back in and make the changes.
(Stay tuned for Part Two: “How to Approach the Second Pass Edit.”)