I want to ask those of you who have written novels before, how do you get through the second draft? And how do you beat burnout when you know you've got to finish the story?

Before anyone suggests I take a break from writing to deal with the burnout, I did that (twice) and it didn't help. At this point I know I really want to get through this and start sending it out. I just need to find the fun and enthusiasm again. I'm starting to think that it's during the second draft that a lot of novels just sort of die, and get left unfinished on the computer because the writer lost his/her momentum. Am I right about that?   —Helen

From Madelynne Ellis
Sounds to me as though you need to connect yourself to the novel and characters again. My suggestion is pick a chapter/scene you want to work on, (remember you don't have to write everything in sequence), then work on creating the right environment.

If I'm struggling, I wait until the kiddies are in bed, and the other half is either out or otherwise occupied. Then I dim the lights, pour a glass of port/wine/large cup of coffee, and pick out some music that I either associate with the characters or with a particular attitude or emotion. After a bit of pacing and singing along, ie, immersing myself in particular character I find it's much easy to sit down and write.

If this fails, I take a bubbly, candlelit bath, with my first draft and a pen. Warning maybe result in extreme shriveling, due to you sitting in a rapidly cooling bath of water as you frantically try to get all the ideas down, because as soon as you leave the water things stop flowing so well, or life intrudes.

If all else fails, deadlines are incredible motivators, but I find it has to be a real deadline for it to work properly. Deadlines of my own making are too easy to move. Editor deadlines are far more frightening!

From Lisabet Sarai
I don't think it's possible to do a reasonable editing pass on a novel without a second (or more) pair of eyes. Quite apart from the burnout, there's the question of blindness. We all tend to be blind to our habitual faults (that's why they're habitual)! Hopefully you can find other folks on the list who can help out (I noticed a couple of volunteers. I'm sorry that my own schedule won't support that - not my writing schedule but my work schedule.)

My solution for the second draft is to sell the novel first and then be faced with a deadline (LOL). Then I don't have the choice of whether to work on the revisions or not!

To be fair, though, I'm not like Jill. I rarely make significant changes to plot or character during the second round of edits. It's more a question of polishing, clean-up and consistency maintenance. I'm grateful, 'cause I'd never be able to cut 120K words to 80K. I'd have to give up long before I met that target!

From Keziah Hill
From my limited experience and from listening to the musings of other more experienced writers, I think this is the point where novels get abandoned. They all say it's now hard work and the delight of getting to know your characters and their story is over. It's a bit like a marriage when you get the point where you're in for the long haul. You've already left it and come back to it so now it's less a about creativity and more nuts and bolts stuff. Someone I know bribes herself with treats. She won't eat chocolate or give herself some other pleasure until she's edited a certain number of pages.

I don't know if this helps, but maybe you won't find that fun and enthusiasm again and the whole project has moved on to something more like a project that has to be finished. Do artificial deadlines work for you? Something like giving yourself a certain amount of time then submitting it? Good luck, I'm about 9,000 words away from completing my first draft so the second draft blues are looming.

From Kathleen Bradean
I used to hate rewrites, until I gave myself permission to let the original draft suck. Now I love rewrites. Okay, maybe not love, but I understand that's where the real craft of writing comes in.

I look for themes emerging that I wasn't conscious of the first time around and expand a little on them. I'll admit that my main motivation on my rewrite of Chaos Magic was the need to pare down from 118,000 words to about 80,000 to make it more saleable. That way I truly had to rethink every scene. But-- it wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't fallen back in love with my characters, and felt a real connection to the story I was telling. Maybe you have to look back at your motivations when you started to tell your story. There was a reason why you had to get it down on the page. (and don't feel shy about resubmitting chapters - that's what we're here for)

From D. L. King
I don't know if I'll be much help because I actually didn't mind doing the second and subsequent drafts. I don't know why I didn't mind it, but I actually sort of got into it.

What I did, after leaving it alone for about a month, was to print it out and sit down with a legal pad and a pen. I read from the print out and made corrections on the pages with the pen. (I used a red pen so I could see the notes easily) When I got to areas that I was unhappy with or that I needed to add to, I put a number where I wanted to change something and wrote a corresponding number on the legal pad, then had at it! I cut stuff out by striking through the lines with my trusty red pen.

When I'd done that, I made the changes on the computer and printed it out again. Then I gave it to a few people to read and make their own notes and I went through the same process again. I read their notes and if I agreed, I made the changes. When I was finished, I printed it out again and re-read it.

By this time, I practically had it memorized, but I still liked it. I figured that had to be a good thing... Anyway, after I was finally satisfied, I started sending it out.

I have to tell you, it's been quite a while and now, when I read parts again, I find stuff I would change still (but I can't because it's out of my hands). I figure, you could always find things to change and you'd eventually completely ruin your manuscript. Now, if someone wants it, the editor can make or suggest the changes!

All this to say, really, just do it! All you have to do is make yourself sit down and read it through. Actually, Stephen King suggests you read it through first, without making any notes or corrections. Then read it through for edits. I didn't have that much self control! But I'll tell you, it seems to work better (at least for me) if you can sit down and read it through in one sitting. Just get everyone out of the house for the day.

From Scriblr
Yes, I understand the feelings of the second draft blues. I have been working at a novel (mainstream mystery) for the last couple of years (right now I am in a rewrite). There have been times when I look at it and wonder if I will ever get this thing finished. I guess you just have to find the feeling inside of yourself where you feel the rhythm of the words and can almost hear the characters voices speaking to you. You feel on one hand like the parent of the story, and on the other hand just an observer. As the parent you want to nurture and care for the story, keeping it away from all pain and editing. The observer/writer wants the story to be the best it can be, and sometimes there has to be some cutting, and cutting causes the flow of blood. Of course in this case the blood is ink, but in many cases it hurts just as much. You have spent many months/years working on it, and sometimes your relationship with it lasts longer than a relationship with a living breathing person, so you feel protective. You have to come to the point where you ask yourself..."Am I just playing at this, or do I really want to be a writer." Depending on your answer to that question you make the choice. It sounds like you have made that choice...Brava!

From Kathleen Bradean
The NEXT novel I write won't have this problem. My first draft will probably come in under 100K words because what I learned writing the last one is how to tighten my scenes and make each one count (20K cut right there). I also learned how to streamline the plot (chopping 10K here) remove excess characters (7K there), and how, no matter how funny, to murder my darlings (another 5K or so).

I spliced away almost every "had," "just," etc.

If a character did two actions - "I picked up my coffee and took a sip." I made it one - "I sipped my coffee." (50% savings right there)

A biggie for me is "looking." - "He turned to look at me." If he sees what "I" did next, then he was looking at "me."

This falls under my "micromanaging your characters" rule. If I'm directing them like claymation figurines, showing the reader a frame-by-frame movement, then I need to pull way back and limit myself to impressionistic mental images of the scene with a few focus moments or props to sharpen the image in the reader's mind. The reader might not imagine the exact same bedroom I do, but as long as they have an image in their mind, it won't change the impact of the story if their carpet doesn't match my drapes (so to speak).

And even though I HATE outlines - I have the next one plotted out in quick sketches, chapter by chapter, to save myself the headache of doing a chapter by chapter outline at the end. (or getting someone to teach me how, and then spending a month and a half rewriting one *wink*) My story may change, but I'm going to track that as I go along on my outline.

I have the advantage of vision now for my next novel. I know how much story I can tell, I know how to stop my secondary characters from hogging page time and redirecting the focus, and I have a much better sense of the story I'm telling.

Poppy Z. Brite said, "You don't learn how to write a novel, you learn how to write this novel," but thank goodness that doesn't mean reinventing the wheel each time.

From Helen
Thanks to everyone for the advice. I am continuing to make myself sit down at the computer to do the work, and sometime after New Year's may ask for readers offline to read the second draft. I've got a few small scenes I decided I needed to add, to fill in details that I never properly worked out in the original draft, and plenty of polishing to do, between now and then. Somewhere, I'm hoping my enthusiasm revives. I do still love my novel, but at this point I guess I'm just tired.

What I did when I started on the second draft is work out a list of what I thought were the biggest problems that needed to be fixed. Then as I've gone through each chapter, I've fixed all the small problems I've found and when I hit one of the "BIG" problems, I sit down and do some major writing. In many cases, I'm actually adding information to the story to clear up plot problems. The third go around, I expect I'll be doing a lot of tightening and catching those last grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Also right now, I'm making a chapter by chapter outline to help me develop a synopsis later.