Second Draft Word Count: 3199

My favorite part of writing this second draft is having the opportunity to expand and polish the world my characters live in. The simple way of putting it is that I get to retreat into my mind and try to describe the imaginary world I’ve made for myself. It’s so much fun.

I plan to include a few more characters. A father and a sister.

In the first draft I felt that the protagonist, Sara Emoc, needed a stronger reason for following through on her role in the plot. She had originally been motivated by “just wanting to do the right thing”. It didn’t match up with the stakes of the story. I plan to combine her motivation of wanting to do the right thing with also wanting to honor her Father.

I also felt that the first draft lacked conflict at certain times. The conflict that Sara faced in the first draft was mostly exterior and I wanted to give her more to chew on emotionally. Especially in the earlier part of the story – enter the Sister. The late parts of the story are a bit of whirlwind. I’m eager to rewrite them and expand on the climax and ending.

A crazy idea I’ve been playing with would also change the story drastically. I’m considering adding a second protagonist whose story would run parallel to Sara’s and intersect somewhere in the rising action. This would be a major change. I’ve gone back and forth on wanting to include it in this second draft. The main consequence would be doubling the word count. This would take me out of qualification for the competition I was planning to join. Choices.

That’s it for this first update. If you have any suggestions for what you’d like to know about, feel free to chime in on the comments.

Thanks for reading.