Two days ago, I finished writing the first draft of my YA fantasy work-in-progress. I’d been working on it every day for the past year and a half, but it had been on my mind since 2022. Although this book is my third work-in-progress, it is only the second one with a complete manuscript. The other is book one of my planned duology, The League.
Despite YA fantasy being my favorite book genre, this is the first time I’ve written anything fantasy. It had quite the learning curve. I didn’t realize how heavily I rely on expressions like “the ball is in your court” and “stay tuned”, which reference things that do not exist in my fantasy world. I also struggled with worldbuilding. Even though it is a low fantasy, I still had to create countries, geography, and systems of government. Those were obvious elements of a fantasy world. The ones I didn’t think about were religion and burial practices. Not only did I forget about these in the world development phase, but I didn’t realize I needed to know them until I’d written three-quarters of the book.
These questions are now in a list on my phone entitled “Second Draft Notes”. If I had paused to figure them out, it would have interrupted my flow. The same is true about the various ideas I had for changing, deleting, or adding scenes in the earlier parts of the book. If I had stopped to go back and edit those sections, it would have crippled my progress. Instead, I continued from my current spot as if I had already made those changes. They, along with other realizations I had about things I forgot to include (like the fact that my characters carry swords), are also on my notes list.
I will be heavily consulting that list when I begin writing the second draft. The issue I know I will run into is that I need to delete things rather than add them. My first draft’s final word count is 91,580. My target word count was 80,000-82,000. The first third of the book is slow, so I will be deleting and consolidating many scenes. I hope this will offset the necessary additions to result in a manuscript that is 10,000 words shorter.
But all of that will wait. I am taking two months off before delving into the editing phase. I want time for my brain to reset so I can come at the book with fresh eyes. Since I’ve been working on this project nonstop for years, I need a break and some distance. I always did this with school writing projects, and it served me well. I have a week-long staycation at the end of July, so my plan is to spend that time delving into major edits. I am well aware that that is not enough time to edit a full manuscript. I just want it to get me started and hopefully through the changes I need to make to the first third of the book.
After I finish my second draft, I will likely take another short break then do another round (or two, or three) of edits before reaching out to an actual editor. There is a library patron who is a writer and professional editor who has already expressed interest in looking at my work. Once I complete that process, I will begin querying.
But that’s a ways off. For now, I’m going to celebrate finishing the first draft and enjoy my much-deserved break. I will still be writing blog posts, so stay tuned.
Allison Burton 