: Re: Is writing three drafts really necessary? So I understand the first draft which is basically writing whatever comes to mind but I don't understand why we have to rewrite it three times. Can

@Carla500

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OK, it would be helpful to know the source of this advice. But, absent that information, here is my take on the issue.

First, I do not subscribe to the notion that there is a fixed and required number of drafts. You revise until you are done. Done might be "I have to turn it in now." or it might be "I have taken care of all of the issues that I care about."

Second, there are a whole host of structural issues that you might wish to address. I will list just a few, with the proviso that there are many more:

Sequencing issues such as where and when events happen. That is, you go through the manuscript to check that you do not have gaps in the where and when that will distract the reader.
Smoothing out info dumps. That is, it is natural to dump information into the story as you write the first draft that would distract the reader if left in the final product. If the information is important to the story, you figure out how to slip it into the story as a part of dialogue or brief narration.
Pacing issues such as scenes in which the story does not advance or there is no engagement on the part of the characters. You might have waxed poetic on the weather or the landscape or the moral decay of western civilization. Good stuff but maybe more than the story needs.
Dialogue issues such as the fact that all of the characters sound the same.

I am an engineer and am accustomed to checklists. Before you ship, you go down the checklist to ensure that you and the team have done the things that must be done before shipping. In my mind, writing (done correctly) is a form of engineering. The issues that I listed above (and many more) should be part of the "check before shipping/submitting" checklist for writers. The really good engineering teams can run through their checklists without having to make a lot of major changes. I suppose that the truly great writers might also achieve that level of performance. For the rest of us, it pays to make sure. I would not trust engineer or writer that had no checklist and/or failed to make one last quality check.

In other words, you, as a writer, must decide what is important to you. Having decided that, you must inspect your work to ensure that you have taken care of those things.

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