With the on-sale date coming up in about one week (July 5) for Shaken Loose, my novel set in Hell, it seemed like a good time to figure out how many drafts I did of this book.
It turns out I have no idea.
There’s certainly a paper trail (or digital trail, to be precise). My computer has folders for each year of work on Shaken Loose, from 2014 when I started writing to 2022 when I turned in the final draft to my publisher.
But what counts as a “draft?”
This is both a logistical and theoretical question. Logistical: The first couple of years, I saved each chapter as a separate Word file and titled it with a new number (v2, v3 etc.) each time I made a significant bunch of changes. Most chapters ended up with three or four versions, but some had as many as nine in a single year. Then I switched to saving the entire document as one file and giving it a new title with each set of updates. For instance, my computer tells me that in 2019 I filed sixteen versions, in 2020 nineteen, and in 2021 ten.
I guess I could total all that up and come up with some huge number like 9 + 9 + 16 + 19 + 10. But that raises the more theoretical question: What counts as a truly new draft?
Thinking abstractly, I picture a new draft of a book as something very different from the previous version. The writer switches from third person narration to first person in the new version, or the heroine dies at the end instead of saving the day, or a secondary plot is eliminated. But a lot of my updates were incremental refinements—tightening flabby language, taking a scene deeper or cutting it entirely, adding a new opening, or moving chapters around. Do those count as new drafts? I don’t know. There’s no bright line that tells me, “Version 6 in 2019 was a bunch of revisions, while version 7 was a new draft.”
Still, even if I can’t come up with a number, I can safely say that I did a LOT of revisions.
I dislike the revising process. I much prefer writing the first draft, when ideas come gushing out that surprise me, when every paragraph seems new and shiny, when progress is visible and quantifiable like laying track for a new rail line.
Revising is murkier. I’m confronted by the weaknesses in my manuscript. I have to cut parts that I love. I face structural problems that don’t have neat answers. I spend hours changing something, and then realize it was better in its original form. Days pass and I feel like I’ve gotten nowhere, like that old Pete Seeger anti-war song, “waist deep in the big muddy.”
The difference is that—unlike Seeger’s Vietnam-War-as-quicksand metaphor—writers need to keep slogging through the mud.
I was particularly delighted when Publishers Weekly opened their review of Shaken Loose by saying, “Not a word is wasted in DeBare’s intense and challenging . . . debut.” My primary love is story, not language; I’m not a writer who tries to stun people with the crispness or elegance of my prose. So PW’s “not a word is wasted” was surprising and welcome praise—and a testament to how revision after slogging revision can hone and polish a book.
Thus the above graphic, which I will throw up onto my social media walls. And if someone asks me, “How did you write this book?” I can confidently answer, and wait for them to groan:
The road to Hell is paved with good revisions.
Read more about Shaken Loose and pre-order a copy via the links on my web site: ilanadebare.com. Or ask your favorite independent bookstore or library to order it for you.
I’m revising right now and OMG it’s a slog. I try to thank myself for getting it as far as I have but the urge to save a new draft and declare it complete is very strong some days.
Ilana - So enjoyed reading about your revision process; lucky you to have ideas come gushing out even if eventually they are to be modified or even edited out!