What To Do After You Finish Your First Draft (Spoiler: Nothing, Yet)

INT. KITCHEN TABLE – NIGHT

In the midst of a detritus of empty mugs, candy wrappers, and post-its, light from a small lamp pools over a laptop.

You sit hunched over, brow furrowed, fingers hovering mid-air. A beat. Suddenly, your hands crash down, keys erupting in a spurt of furious clatter. Then silence as you take in:

THE END.  

There you have it — a beginning, a middle, and an end. Your first draft is done. Typed. Saved. Real. Through late nights, plot snarls, and a million flashes of “Why am I doing this?” -  you’ve managed to create a whole something out of nothing.

Go ahead, revel — the moment demands it. Indulge in a couple — no, MANY — rapturous “Woohooooo’s.” Kiss the sky. Or your dog. Or your person. In whichever order you choose.

Victory is yours.

But then, inevitably, the questions creep in: NOW WHAT? Do you dive into revisions? You had that idea for the midpoint, and those tangled threads…Or should you send it to your trusted readers for feedback? Perhaps you should just call in a professional editor?

Well… no.

Don’t do any of those things. Not yet.

First order of business: put that pesky critter away. The further out of sight, the better. Back in the day, that meant dropping the printed draft into the bottom of a drawer, shoving it behind a stack of tax returns, - or, if you veer towards the dramatic, sliding it under a hatbox in the far corner of a cedar closet.

But, really, who has a cedar closet? Or for that matter, a hat box? And crucially, the printed draft has gone the way of the dodo. So, with all the pomp and circumstance a mouse click can muster, you create a new folder named ‘It Which Shall Not Be Touched.’ Hide it away in your archives. And yes, back it up.

Then…walk away. 

With the draft out of sight, you now need to put it out of mind. THIS is where you make a conscious decision to NOT think about your draft. THIS is where you pivot your brain and let it frolic in other pastures. THIS is where you make “Anywhere but draft” your mantra.

Maybe you begin a new project – didn’t you have that idea for a take on Pride & Prejudice only with turtles? Or, if you want to get out of your head, how ‘bout birdwatching? Snail tracking? Beekeeping? Flower pressing?

No? Nothing? Well, the kumquots in your backyard need harvesting… And that garage sure needs purging. And if all else fails? Go ahead and binge some truly terrible TV- with zero guilt of course.

The goal is simple: create distance.

Emotional distance.Perspectival distance.Memorial distance.

Ideally, keep your draft on that sabbatical for at least a week, two if you can swing it. But, in a pinch, hell, even a couple of days would be grand. 

Fade to black….

Cue in sounds of rain pattering on a roof.

INT. KITCHEN TABLE – MORNING

It’s a Tuesday, and you’ve just had your first sip of coffee - really, the only one that counts. The garage, now free of cobwebs and dust bunnies, sits eerily ordered. Neat rows of canned kumquats line your window sill. Your accent wall boasts a rogue’s gallery of pressed-flower critters – it’s a veritable forest! And sadly, you’ve come to terms with the fact that Mr. Darcy can’t hack it as a turtle. Oh, but what about a badger?

Enough!

It’s time.

Without further ado, you scroll through your Archive till you come upon “It which shall not be opened”.

You steel yourself, you double-click, you read.

It takes a moment for your brain to snap back into that world. The characters, the stakes, the rhythm of it all. 

And then, there you are again.

But something has happened – something unmistakably, honest-to-goodness, gosh-darn-it wacky…

As you tuck into those pages, you’re seeing things differently. Not like a proud parent clinging to every sentence, or a panicked perfectionist trying to salvage a mess. No — it’s more like you’re a curious stranger stumbling on something that teases you with a glimmer of potential.

Those clunky scenes you once agonized over? Not as bad as you thought. Some of them might even be… gasp…good. (Who ARE you?)

More importantly, the weak spots step forward - not in a “look what I did” way, but like little warning lights begging for attention. That subplot that fizzles halfway through? Now it’s obvious. The monologue that felt profound at 1 a.m.? What a bloated load of pretentious fluff!

But you’re not crushed. You feel energized. Because THIS is what the distance was for.

You’re no longer gripping every word like it’s sacred anymore. You’re seeing the work. And you're ready to do it. Maybe two meandering characters could be fused into one with a meaningful arc. Maybe that poetic paragraph about the river slicing the city in half — gorgeous, sure — hits harder as two crisp lines.

Better yet, you begin to SEE the story underneath the words. Patterns emerge. Echoes deepen. Dialogue becomes action. The promise of subtext taunts you like a loose thread begging to be pulled.

As you cut, unearth, combine, and rethink - you coax the story’s narrative heart from a faint pit-pit-pat into a full and lusty beat.

Now - before you declare your new draft is ready for other eyes, there’s one last thing. One last secret weapon that’s worth its weight in canned kumquats:

Read. It. Aloud.

Yep - the whole damn thing. From first to last page. No skimming or skipping. And read it like a performance - your voice, your rhythm, your interpretation. Why? Because you’re writing for the ear as much as the eye. And when those words come out of your mouth, you’ll hear the truth of them.

You’ll spot the stumbles - the stilted dialogue, the overwritten action, the places where rhythm crumples. You’ll catch the repetition and you’ll feel where the pace dips or the emotional thread slips.

And now? Now it might just be time to send the draft forth in search of fresh eyes and ears.

Because writing is really about rewriting. And then rewriting again.

So sit down, take a breath. And then step forth, you drama-wielding, dialogue-wrangling coffee-sipping wonder — your draft awaits.