Advice SectionThe Second Draft

A verse (composed on a whim long ago) offering advice to young writers.

First write it down from fore to aft;
Fix errors in the second draft!
Made a slip that looks quite daft?
Just fix it in the second draft!
When scenes go spinning, all askew
And heroes die just halfway through
There's just one thing for you to do --
Fix it in Draft Number Two!

Death scenes where the reader laughed --
Fix them in the second draft!
Silly typos by the raft --
Fix them in the second draft!
Armies all by morons staffed --
Fix them in the second draft!
Half the art and all the craft
Are added in the second draft!

(But be sure, when that draft is done
That it reads as well as Number One!)

---------------------------------------------------

Copyright 1992 by Lawrence Watt Evans
All rights reserved
No reproduction permitted without permission of the author

---------------------------------------------------