The Worst Draft
W e assume that our work will be scrutinized. Why would we write if we didn’t think people would read it and why would we do revisions if we thought people could discern the story from our ramblings in the first draft? No, as we write, we assume that someone will come back later and question why we wrote something. Of the four writer’s drafts, the third draft falls under the most scrutiny from readers. This is the draft in which we are primarily concerned with sentence and paragraph structure. Just the other day, I saw an article about Dan Brown's 20 Worst Sentences . I’m sure you’ve probably seen it. It mentions sentences like, “ Only those with a keen eye would notice his 14-karat gold bishop's ring with purple amethyst, large diamonds, and hand-tooled mitre-crozier appliqué. ” (The Da Vinci Code, Chapter 5) And this one from chapter four: “ Five months ago, the kaleidoscope of power had been shaken, and Aringarosa was still reeling from the blow. ” While I laug...