The Three-draft Process for Novels and Video Games (Part 3)

How to Revise Your Novel for Agents and Editors

Learning Objective: By the end of this post, you will know how to revise your novel for the querying process using three steps.

While working as a video game writer in South Korea, I used a three-draft process to write and revise game scripts. This process is inspired by screenwriter Brooks Elms who once said that writers write first drafts to get the story down, second drafts to get the story “good,” and third drafts to get the story “great.” Today, in the final installment of this series, we’re talking about the three steps I use to get a story “great” and how these steps might help you prepare your novel for the querying process or submission to publishers. If you’re just now joining us, check out Part 1 (first drafts) and Part 2 (second drafts) here:

Draft 3: Get It Great

In our previous lessons, we explored how identifying the audience for each draft can help us write and revise with clear priorities. For me, my first drafts are most productive if my audience is me and me alone. Writing a first draft with no intention of showing it to anyone helps me lower the stakes for each of my writing sessions. With lower stakes, it’s both mentally and physically easier for me to consistently meet my daily, weekly, and monthly writing goals. For my second drafts, my audience is a trusted reader who is expecting a complete narrative that functions on a macroscopic story structure level but might need help navigating mid-level craft concerns like scene craft, the pacing of subplots, and sustaining tension in the “soggy middle” of a story. In a game writing context, this trusted reader is typically my manager. In a novel writing context, this trusted reader is my agent or a close critique partner.

Once I receive feedback from my reader, I start working on my third draft. The third draft is typically my first “high-stakes” draft in the whole writing process. The stakes are high because my next audience is usually a stakeholder who represents real readers that might buy the book. Examples of stakeholders in publishing include (1) the agents a writer queries, (2) the editors that agents submit books to for consideration, and (3) the sales and acquisitions teams that must approve an editor’s decision to acquire a book. In other words, this audience is looking for an entertaining and (mostly) seamless reading experience. As a result, they will be unforgiving of glaring problems with story structure, character arcs, or line level writing.

Even though the high stakes of draft three are nerve-wracking, I follow three concrete steps to stay grounded and focused on my main goal of writing the best story I can. These three steps helped me sign with my agent and ultimately sell my debut novel, Good People, to Simon & Schuster.

Here’s how these three steps can help you revise your novel. As always, take anything that’s useful to you and your writing life and leave everything that’s not behind.