Trusting the reader

On letting meaning sit between the lines

Not everything needs to be fully seen Photo by Alfred Leung

I thought Draft Five was going to be the last one.

Ha!

Or at least the last real one. After that, I imagined I’d do a gentle read-through, tidy a few sentences, smooth things out, and be done.

Yet here I am in Draft Six.

It doesn’t look dramatic from the outside. I’m not rewriting huge sections or changing the plot. But I’m still deep inside the book, still moving things around, still cutting — quite a lot, actually. I’m about halfway through and I think I’ve taken out around four thousand words.

What I’m noticing now isn’t what happens, but whether it feels true.

Would he really say that?
Would she react like that?
Is that even physically possible?

More than anything, it’s about trust.

I can see now how often I’ve been over-explaining — stepping in as if the reader needs guiding through every moment, rather than letting the scene do its own work. Draft Six, for me, is mostly about taking that away.

Letting things land.

Letting the reader work it out for themself.

It’s strange, because it looks like polishing. You’re trimming lines, adding small details, shifting things around. But it isn’t polish. I can’t focus on cadence or perfect sentences yet, because I’m still changing the substance underneath.

I’m still asking: is this right?

I’ve changed the opening again — not rewritten it, but reordered it. I used to ease in slowly, set the scene, establish the normal world. Now the second sentence goes straight to the action, and the whole thing feels more alive.

Which is slightly maddening, because I thought I’d already solved that.

But I think that’s what this stage is. The book has become clearer, and now everything has to rise to meet that clarity.

If I had to sum it up, Draft Six is where I stop asking:

Does the story work?

and start asking:

Does this feel lived, or just written?

I think the other thing I’m noticing is how often I start scenes too early, or leave them too late.

But that’s probably another post.

My Novel Year

I’m a novelist and somatic life coach, working with writers, creatives, and anyone wanting to bring more creativity into their lives.

If you’d like to follow my progress through My Novel Year – as I work on Kezzia, my dual-timeline novel set between Victorian Britain and present-day Suffolk – please subscribe.