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Originally Posted by Dragonlady  No-one who's read it has come up with any major problems, though I'm sure it needs editing. What do you look for when you redraft? |
If no one who has read it comes up with major problems in the first draft, then no one has really read it. I am sure people, probably friends and family members, looked at the words and said oh that's nice, but they are readers, not Readers and there is a difference.. The first thing I find invaluable is my critique group. The second and third in no particular order are my Red Pen of Doom wielding wife who along with a masters in composition and rhetoric has no compunction about telling me all my mechanical flaws in a piece. The other is her sister who is one of the most picky and voracious readers of fantasy and scifi I know and not above telling me my story sucks in total, barring that she goes to great lengths to show me where it is fatally flawed.
The last three things I think you need at the end of your draft if you didn't have them while you were writing it are copies of Strunk and White's Elements of Style, Self-Editing for the Fiction Writer, and the thesaurus.