When it comes to finishing a first draft, following up with a break—a rest—is not just a good idea. It’s arguably an essential task. Whether or not you’re filling your days with dreaming and drafting right now, at some point you’ll arrive at this crucial step in your process. So, let’s explore “rest” together, both the obvious benefits, and maybe the not-so-obvious ones when it comes to your fiction!
The power of rest when revising a first draft
Finishing a first draft is a major accomplishment. Let’s celebrate that right off the bat! You’ve been working for weeks, months—maybe years. You’ve planned or dreamed, sometimes wrestled, sometimes flowed. You have persevered and made it through to The End.
In my own experience and in working with other writers through my creative writing workshops, there’s a range of different impulses and emotional scenarios that might play out after finishing your draft. You might be soaring on the rush of completion—you’re ready to hit ‘Send’ on an email blast to friends, family and publishing houses.
On the other hand, you might want to toss your laptop out the window and never look at the thing again.
It probably won’t surprise you that I’m going to urge you to find the middle ground between these extreme scenarios. I say: resist the urge to share it for now, because it’s not quite the (brilliant) story you think it is. But also, resist the urge to abandon it forever…because it’s not quite the (awful) story you think it is!
Instead of giving in to your emotions at this stage—whether you are jubilant or fed up or anywhere in between—plan on resting your draft. Feel your feelings, but know that now is the time in the process for rest. How long will vary writer to writer and project to project. In my opinion, resting a draft for anything less than two or three weeks is probably not enough to give you the full benefit of this strategy. Some authors give it months.
So, what are the benefits of a decent rest? First of all it will give you a chance to come down from the exhilarated heights or level up from some of the lows so that you have the peace and clarity that will serve you when you start to revise. Second, more in terms of your manuscript, I propose that there three broad categories of advantages (and I’ve given them titles because that’s what writers like to do!): Seeing the Whole, Seeing the (Right) Parts, and Arriving at a Greater Sum.
Seeing the Whole
Stepping away from your draft before making further changes (and before sharing) will give you a unique and immensely helpful chance to see your story as a whole on paper (or screen) for the first time. I find that this just isn’t possible at 7:00 am the morning after you finished at 11:43pm the night before. You are too close to your manuscript. In your mind’s eye, you can see all of your creative intentions with crystal clarity. But that doesn’t mean they’ve made it onto the page—and you won’t be able to tell! The flip side of this is the writer who thinks their story is awful. It’s not! There’s brilliance in there, at least in a potential state, and even in rough spots. But you probably won’t be able to see any of it either without some distance.
So, take that break. What you’re giving yourself is that one and only (but amazing) chance to read your first draft objectively as a whole. I recommend that you do your first read through without making any notes or changes at all. Feel the overall rhythm of the story as it exists at the moment—the big picture. Let your mind take “big picture” notes, about what’s working beautifully, and about what still needs creative work. I think you’ll find that this becomes invaluable to creatively revising your story, letting it become what you see in your mind. This just isn’t possible without a rest in my experience!
Seeing the (Right) Parts
When we jump into revisions too early and can’t see the big picture—the whole—we often start tweaking spelling and grammar and changing little details here and there. While it’s not wrong to tweak, it’s potentially misdirected energy at this stage—you’re fixing and fussing with things that may not survive in your manuscript after feedback or a deeper revision. Resting will help you to see the big picture things that need changing, and thus help to zero in on the smaller parts that stick out as in need of a polishing hand if they are going to serve the story as a whole.
On a purely practical level, you don’t want to spend all sorts of time fussing with paragraphs (or chapters) you’re ultimately going to cut. Get that big picture view so you spend your time addressing the parts that really need work.
Arriving at a Greater Sum
Once you’ve made a first pass through your manuscript with the advantage of rest, and made some thoughtful, deliberate changes, I say rest again. It doesn’t have to be as long this time, but now that you’ve made creative changes to your manuscript, it’s been transformed. Step away, take a break, and come back to it as you did the first time. You may repeat this revision process again or even a few more times. But it’s worth it. Your project is coming into clearer view, better matching your vision each and every time.
And soon, as your story comes more in line with the brilliant story you’ve been imagining all this time, you will have that urge to share it with everyone under the sun. But now this urge will be based on much more solid ground—on the deliberate creative work and confidence that follows a good rest.