2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%

[eyez0nme]

What are your thoughts on this? This is something Stephen King was told by and editor when he was first starting out.

Basically that the 2nd draft of writing (namely, a novel) should be the 1st draft minus 10%.

Effect? Good advice?

 

[GreenKnight]

Broadly agree, yes.

However some people (like me) tend to under-write as much as they over-write. In that while some bits are long-winded and waffly in the first draft, other bits are rushed. So I have to expand in subsequent drafts just as much as I have to cut. In fact that makes my second (or thirteenth) drafts often a bit longer than my first drafts. But longer in better areas, one hopes.

Aside: have just started reading Stephen King's 'On Writing' and finding it very hard to put down. The man is a genius. Warped and twisted, yes, but a genius.

 

[anne]

agree with greenknight..in my first drafts, the content is usually a bit to the point (novel chapters i must say, cos there is no one work, a novel, that i have completed.. have just begun it). the sentences themselves may be long winded but the matter of it is to the point and is not elaborate. only when i revisit it, do i elaborate and sometimes add chunkfuls..digressions basically (meaningful or not, am yet to know!)

that said, i do edit long winded sentences considerably in the second draft or during the revisiting session. this cutting down does account easily, for a ten percent of the writing.

 

[ValkyrieRaven88]

I over-write a bit, but King overwrites massively. He does it well, I suppose, but you still wait for him to get to the point a lot. That's probably why the editor told him that.

GreenKnight--thanks, I was thinking about picking that up but have refrained from doing so as of yet. Since you like it, I'm a bit more inclined to try it.