We talked a while back about what a Zero Draft is and whether or not you want to write one. This week, I want to talk about a more common concept, that of a first draft.

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We've been talking about revisions and how to get through your draft process. A few weeks ago, I gave you an overview of how to work through a revision in a way that makes sense so that you are not working against yourself the whole time. I gave you a free revision checklist and if you have not picked that up yet go ahead and grab that now. We are going to go in depth this week into the last item on that checklist which is to make as many other passes as you desire.

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We've been talking about revisions and how to get through your draft process. A few weeks ago, I gave you an overview of how to work through a revision in a way that makes sense so that you are not working against yourself the whole time. I gave you a free revision checklist and if you have not picked that up yet go ahead and grab that now. We are going to go in depth this week into the third item on that checklist which is to work from most problematic to least.

Get full access to Author Rachel Cooper at authorrachelcooper.substack.com/subscribe

We've been talking about revisions and how to get through your draft process. A few weeks ago, I gave you an overview of how to work through a revision in a way that makes sense so that you are not working against yourself the whole time. I gave you a free revision checklist and if you have not picked that up yet go ahead and grab that now. We are going to go in depth this week into the second item on that checklist which is to do a complete read-through and take notes.

Get full access to Author Rachel Cooper at authorrachelcooper.substack.com/subscribe

Last week we started talking about revisions and how to get through your draft process. I gave you an overview of how to work through a revision in a way that makes sense so that you're not working against yourself the whole time. I gave you a free revision checklist and if you have not picked that up yet go ahead and grab that now. We are going to go in depth this week into the first item on that checklist which is making a solid first draft.

Get full access to Author Rachel Cooper at authorrachelcooper.substack.com/subscribe

We’ve been talking about drafting your novels and specifically about getting through multiple drafts of your novel (if that’s your jam). What we’re really talking about is the process of revising your novel. Revising sounded too much like editing for my liking when I first started doing it, and editing just sounds awful and scary when you don’t know what you’re doing. I started calling it writing another draft and that was somehow easier to initially bear than editing or revising.

The good news is that there is a way to go about getting your revisions done with minimal backtracking and without having to worry about too many things at each stage. Today, I’m going to tell you about how to do your revisions in a way that makes sense and will lead you to less and less revisions with each pass. You can use this method whether you want to write in one draft or in multiple drafts. You are going to work from big problems to small problems. If you like my method, you can then download a free checklist at the end of the episode. So let’s dive in.

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I thought I’d take a break from talking about drafting this week and talk instead about something that fascinates me, which is personality tests. I will make this writing related, since that’s what you’re here for. So we’ll talk about two personality tests I’ve taken and how they both hurt and help me in my writing career.

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Last week we talked about Brandon Sanderson's many draft method, and this week, I wanted to talk about Terry Goodkind's one-draft method.

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Brandon Sanderson is a writer who goes through many revisions. He talks about this over several years during his BYU class lectures on YouTube, and I wanted to distill his process down from several videos, which I will link at least one of them in the description for the podcast for anyone who wants to hear him talk about it more in depth. https://youtu.be/nKHLuGyjRi8

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There are a number of factors that can help determine how many drafts you will need.

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