From Typewritten Draft to Published Page

Ever wonder how much revision goes into a novel before it’s published? Here are the original opening paragraphs of my A. J. Banner novel, In Another Light, typed on one of my typewriters. See below for the final, published version of the opening…

Final published opening:

Phoebe tucks small spiked caps inside Mr. Parker’s eyelids to make him look like he still has eyes. Then she slips cotton puffs beneath the lids to keep them closed, just so. No sutures required, although she had to glue his lips together, had to stuff cotton into his mouth and nose, which would’ve killed him if he’d still been breathing.

But she’s only doing her job to restore his features for his wife. Mandy wants to view him one last time, to remember him the way he was. But if she could bear to see him in his natural condition, she would know that he has expired, kicked the bucket, bought the farm. Elvis has left the building.

Literally. His name was Elvis Parker. The town’s last old-time barber, he worked out of a narrow shop on the waterfront in which he wielded his shiny blade, administering close shaves and buzz cuts, his customers ensconced in vintage vinyl barbershop chairs.

**

What differences stand out to you?

I shifted the viewpoint from first person present tense in the first draft to limited third person present tense in the final version. In the early draft, I let my mind wander. I wrote whatever came to me.

We can do that in first drafts. Write anything and everything.

But in the final draft, I streamlined the prose to focus on the task at hand, staying in scene rather than going off on tangents or musing about society in general. But without that early typewritten page, the final version wouldn’t exist at all.

Every published page begins with a messy first draft.