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How to Revise a First Draft: The Second Draft, Step by Step

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Short answer: let the draft rest, read it through once as a reader, gather your notes into one list, then fix the largest problems first. In most of the sources below, structure, pace and character come before sentences.

In The Write Practice's definition, a second draft is "the result of one round of editing". It is "generally focused on structural concerns like major plot points and the flow of ideas."

What a second draft is

To revise, in Merriam-Webster's first sense, is "to look over again or make changes to in order to correct or improve". Its example is "revise a manuscript".

Wikipedia describes revision as "a process in writing of rearranging, adding, or removing paragraphs, sentences, or words." It "can entail larger conceptual shifts of purpose and audience as well as content."

The novelist Jessica Brody, interviewed on The Creative Penn in August 2026, keeps the two stages apart: "essentially drafting and revising are two different jobs." In her words, "They require very different headspaces and very different skills."

A page on this site separates the jobs that come after a draft: "Revision means re-making choices", while "Line editing means re-making sentences". This guide is about the first of the two.

Step 1: Let the draft rest

The sources disagree on how long. Side by side:

SourceRest before the second draft
TCK Publishing, 2025"at least two weeks. Better yet, take a month."
Eliza Knight, novelist, in The Writer, 2025a week to a month
Stephen King's On Writing, as summed up by NewWriters.org.ukat least six weeks, to "age and mellow"
Ann Hood, as reported by Marjan Kamali in The Writerseveral months
Victoria Gilbert, mystery novelist, in The Writera few days, when contract deadlines are tight

What the wait buys is distance. The novelist Roz Morris, in The Writer: "Ideally, you want to have forgotten what you wrote so you can judge it properly."

Some writers move straight to the second draft. For them, Gilbert advises a first pass "like a reader", tagging "everything that could seem confusing to someone not intimately familiar with the story".

Step 2: Read it through once, as a reader

The National Centre for Writing, a registered charity, publishes an edited transcript of a 2022 podcast with the writer and tutor Lynne Bryan. It sets out this step:

"So you need to read through it. That read through should present ideas about what's not working and what you need to tackle."

TCK Publishing's guide asks you to "Pretend you're picking up someone else's book for the first time" and to note your reactions to four questions:

  • "Where did you feel bored?"
  • "Which scenes felt rushed or unclear?"
  • "When did you feel excited or emotionally pulled in?"
  • "Were there moments where you lost track of who was doing what or why?"

Its rule for this reading: "Don't fix anything yet." Reedsy adds two ways to see the text afresh: "Read it out loud", and "change the font, type size, or the device you're reading it on."

Step 3: Gather the notes into one list

Writer's Digest, in 2013, advised turning the pile of notes into a checklist "before you dive back in". The list "should clearly remind you of each detail you intend to update."

TCK Publishing calls it a revision list: "Highlight plot issues, pacing problems, character inconsistencies, and anything else that stands out."

The same guide adds a map of the draft as it stands: "Write one sentence for each scene describing what happens." The map shows the "scenes that don't advance the plot or develop characters".

Marjan Kamali, a novelist interviewed in The Writer, asks two questions of her second draft:

"How do I restructure what I have and rearrange the order of events in order to create maximum emotional impact on the reader? What am I truly trying to say with this book?"

Step 4: Fix the largest problems first

Victoria Gilbert names the targets. "It's better to use the second draft to ensure you've started the book in the right place, the pacing works, and the character arcs make sense. Working through the timeline, chapter by chapter, is also important."

On pace, she lists what a first draft tends to create: "long stretches of inaction, too much unnecessary description, and too much or too little dialogue". The fix "might involve moving around scenes and chapters as well as cutting or adding text."

The National Centre for Writing's page lists five things a planner looks at when reading a first draft:

  • "whether the plot is working (whether there is rising action, some conflict, a crisis, falling action etc)"
  • "whether the characters convince"
  • "whether the book/story moves at the right pace"
  • "whether there is sufficient air around your words (space for the reader to breathe)"
  • "whether the book conjures up a world"

TCK Publishing splits the work into five passes, one goal each, from structure down to sentences:

  1. "Fix big structural problems and plot holes"
  2. "Strengthen character development and relationships"
  3. "Improve dialogue and voice consistency"
  4. "Enhance settings and descriptions"
  5. "Polish individual sentences and word choices"

How much to change

The novelists in The Writer differ. Kamali: "Think of the second draft not as a minor renovation of your narrative but as a complete regutting." Dennis Must: "The heart and sinew of the novel lie within that first draft."

The National Centre for Writing ties the size of the redraft to the writer: "The nature of that redrafting will depend on what kind of writer you are." Drawing on an essay by Zadie Smith, its page describes two kinds.

The "Macro Planner is a writer who makes notes, creates a structure, builds a plot before they even begin to write". Reading the first draft, "They may take big leaps". By contrast, "A Micro Manager will only do small redrafts".

The page adds that Macro Planners are "the ones who do the most writing in the end."

Must, for his part, measures his own second drafts against the first. "The amount of time spent on this second draft often exceeds by two to three times what I expended on the novel's genesis."

Step 5: Keep what you cut

The novelist Evie Hawtrey, in The Writer: "Before you begin working on second-draft edits, create an 'outtakes and ideas' document. Put anything you cut from your first draft into this file."

Her reason: "Having a workspace like this will free you to be bold because, technically, nothing is lost even if you make dramatic changes."

She also advises keeping "a running list of questions raised by any changes you make (or decide not to make) during your second draft."

Eliza Knight names the opposite risk: "over-editing. This is when they cut and tighten so much, they take the emotion out of the story." She recommends "a separate document for deleted scenes".

In Scrin, a scene can be frozen before you rework it, and its history takes you back when the new version turns out worse.

Step 6: Show it to readers, then count what they agree on

The National Centre for Writing places readers after the redraft: "Once you have redrafted your book or story, it's time to show somebody else." Hawtrey works the other way round: her second draft waits until her critique partners have answered.

TCK Publishing's questions for readers:

  • "What parts were confusing?"
  • "Where did they lose interest?"
  • "Which characters felt real or flat?"
  • "Did the story feel complete?"

The National Centre for Writing asks readers for feelings rather than fixes: "Encourage your reader to reflect on how they felt". Its example of useful feedback: "I was bored by the middle."

Both count agreement before acting. TCK Publishing: "If three people mention a slow middle, that's worth fixing." The National Centre for Writing: "if three or more people read your draft, only take feedback seriously if more than one comment on the same thing."

When the second draft is done

TCK Publishing: "Your second draft is complete when the major structural problems are solved and the story delivers on its promise." And: "You'll know you're done when you start making tiny changes that don't really improve anything."

Writer's Digest adds one last reading after deep changes. Its advice is to "re-read the opening paragraphs (or the whole first chapter)" and check that their "feeling and atmosphere" is still on target. Then the same with the last paragraphs of the last chapter.

The sources split on when to work on sentences. Some leave it for later. Kamali, in The Writer: "I think it's a mistake to think of the second draft as a mechanical 'editing' revision." She saves that for the third draft. Gilbert, in the same article, sees sense in fixing "some clunky passages and dialogue", but for the most part leaves polishing the language to another draft. The Write Practice's five-draft plan puts the line edit in the fourth.

Others place it in the second draft. Knight, also in The Writer, fine-tunes the language of her second draft so the scenes "come alive on the page". Hawtrey, once her readers have answered, treats "fine-tuning language, adding or cutting description, even massive structural changes" as fair game. TCK Publishing keeps sentences for the fifth and last pass of the second draft. Reedsy's 2016 post: the second draft is "where you apply your craft, polish your writing, and get it ready to share with an editor".

The same post reports the novelist David Hewson's view in one line: "the first draft is you, whereas the second draft is about the reader experience."

Emma Darwin's tip, quoted by NewWriters.org.uk, runs one draft further. "Write your first draft for yourself, your second draft for your reader, and your third draft for the person you want to persuade."

After November

The writing year after November, on this site, puts this work in December. "Whatever November produced, December is generally when the manuscript itself starts being treated as something other than a first draft."

What a month of writing leaves is a draft, and "What makes it a draft is that it is written out and still open to change."

A second-draft checklist

Ten questions, each taken from the sources above. They serve as a diagnostic, not a mould: they show what the draft already does.

  1. Has the draft rested? At least two weeks for TCK Publishing; a week to a month for Eliza Knight.
  2. Have you read it through once without fixing anything? TCK Publishing's rule for the first reading.
  3. Are your notes in one list? Writer's Digest and TCK Publishing.
  4. Does every scene have its one-sentence summary? TCK Publishing's map of the draft.
  5. Does the book start in the right place? Victoria Gilbert's first target.
  6. Does the pace hold, without long stretches of inaction or unneeded description? Gilbert.
  7. Do the character arcs make sense, and do the characters convince? Gilbert; the National Centre for Writing.
  8. Does the plot rise to a crisis, and does the timeline hold chapter by chapter? The National Centre for Writing; Gilbert.
  9. Is everything you cut kept in a separate file? Evie Hawtrey; Eliza Knight.
  10. After the changes, do the opening and the ending still carry the feeling you meant? Writer's Digest.

Questions

What is a second draft? In The Write Practice's definition, the draft that comes out of one round of editing, mostly on structure: the major plot points and the flow of ideas. It starts once a whole first draft exists.

How long should you wait before revising a first draft? From a few days to several months, by the sources on this page. TCK Publishing advises at least two weeks, better a month; Stephen King's On Writing, as summed up by NewWriters.org.uk, at least six weeks.

What should you fix first when revising a novel? The largest problems. Victoria Gilbert, in The Writer, names where the book starts, the pacing, the character arcs and the timeline. TCK Publishing puts structure and plot holes in the first of five passes, and sentences in the last.

Should you edit sentences in the second draft? The sources on this page split. Marjan Kamali saves that work for the third draft, Victoria Gilbert mostly for a later one, and The Write Practice's five-draft plan puts the line edit in the fourth. Eliza Knight fine-tunes the language in her second draft and Evie Hawtrey counts it as fair game, both in The Writer; TCK Publishing gives sentences the last of its five passes, and Reedsy's 2016 post includes polishing the writing in the second draft.

How do you know when the second draft is done? For TCK Publishing, when the big structural problems are solved and the story keeps its promise, and when your changes have become too small to improve anything.

How many drafts does a novel need? The Write Practice says "the majority of writers will need at least three drafts to complete their story and have a finished book." Wikipedia notes that "Many writers go through multiple rounds of revisions before they reach a final draft."

Sources