But I hate to tell you – this isn’t The End. Really, it’s only the beginning. The first draft of a novel is like baking two sponges for a fancy cake. The real work starts after that, creating the filling and topping,  making sure it stands up straight, decorating the top with small details that are so essential for the bigger picture and can make all the difference.

And that’s what you have to do after writing the first draft. Pull the whole thing  – characters, plot, subplot, settings, prose… so that the overall experience of reading it is going to be amazing for the book buyer.

After I’ve written The End, patted myself on the back, celebrated in some way (coffee and cake usually) and taken a short break (some people swear by stepping away for longer, we’re all different) I then mentally rub my hands together and get stuck in again.

First off, I concentrate on three main things:

I ask myself if I have really started the story at the beginning of the action – at the crux of what sends the main character on a journey. I’ve had eleven books published but still, to this day, when I get feedback from my agent it’s usually along the lines of  “Do you think it would be better to start the story at your Chapter Two?” EVERY TIME I write a first chapter full of back story, setting up the plot, introducing details about the protagonists… But all of this can be slotted in later on. In that first chapter you want to grab the reader’s attention and give them a real idea of the main character’s motivation.

My 2018 romantic comedy, One Summer in Rome, is a good example of this. Mary quits her job and flees to Rome, hoping to leave her problems behind her. In my first draft the first chapter was all about showing how her life was in England, her former awful boss, the confrontation that led up to her quitting… In the final draft (the one published) the first chapter sees her already at the airport, setting off on her new adventure.

So when I begin a second draft I ask, is that first chapter really necessary or it is mostly a part of the story that can be woven in later on? Am I using it to get going with the main plot, or is it a comforting chapter for me as the author, to try to  make the reader understand my character as well as I do? Remember, in real life when you meet someone for the first time, you don’t tell them everything about yourself at that first meeting… little bits of your life come out, over time, as the friendship develops. And it’s the same with your novel – the reader doesn’t need to know the protagonist’s whole life history before the story really starts. And you want to grab their attention. So I try to cut more or less straight to the event that kicks off the main plot.

Secondly, I ask myself – are the stakes high enough? Because if they aren’t, how can I expect the reader to become invested in my main character and care enough to read on and find out what happens to them? In my last book, for example – Knowing You – Violet is unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend which takes her on a journey of discovery. The outcome of this, in the first draft, wasn’t significant enough. Only one area of her life was in danger of imploding if things turned out badly. I needed to change this in order to get the reader really involved and rooting for Violet. So her love life was messed up – but what if, say, her career became affected as well?

I’m always surprised, at the end of a first draft, how much further I can push my character to the edge once I’ve asked this question. Sounds as if I’m cruel, doesn’t it, but I do love my protagonists! And it’s because of that I really want to turn the readers into their cheerleaders. By the end of a novel the main character will have changed in some way – this is the purpose of their story. So I really set them challenges in order to achieve this. Think of everything Elizabeth and Mr Darcy go through in Pride and Prejudice (helped by the minor characters and societal rules of the time) in order to finally express their love for each other.

And finally, is the world I’ve created detailed enough? Will the reader become totally immersed in it? To help with this I make sure I have described the book’s world using all five senses. Forgive Me Not is about a Emma, a recovering alcoholic who used to be homeless and returns home to make amends. The story swings between flashbacks to her grey life on the streets, and the present, with her family, on the joyous farm she grew up on. I made sure I graphically conveyed the contrasting sounds, smells and sights of these two settings.

For setting books abroad the internet can be a great tool. In 2014 I wrote From Paris with Love. I’d lived in Paris as a young woman but the memories were hazy so I found a webcam online that showed a moving panoramic view of the city. I printed off an underground map. I checked to see if tourist spots had changed since my last visit there. If you are setting your story somewhere real accuracy is important but not all authors can afford a research trip so you can get around this. Game of Scones was set in Greece but I set it in a fictional village.

And being a foodie, I use food to convey the character of my settings. Aromatic pizza in One Summer in Rome, sweet homemade strawberry jam on the farm in Forgive Me Not. Details to get the reader’s mouth watering.

There are many other things to look out for when rewriting a manuscript, but these are the major ones for me.

It isn’t The End. It’s just the beginning of creating something rather exciting.

I don’t believe people are born evil. They are what they are due to what has happened to them along the journey of life, the starting point of which is being born as a bundle of innocence. Getting to know the backstory about people fascinates me – and if you want to fascinate your readers then make sure your characters are not perfect people who would never exist in the real world. 

Take books’ heroes, for example.  Mr Darcy out of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. We all love him, don’t we, despite his stand-offish, arrogant ways? Because there is a sense of hidden vulnerability. That, combined with his imperious manner, makes for a killer combination because it makes us curious about our hero; makes us think that the haughtiness is perhaps all a front. This is much more appealing then if Mr Darcy had still been handsome, yes, but cheerful and charming to boot. Where’s the challenge?

You see, in my opinion, women and men  – and smitten readers – want a challenge when getting to know their love-interest. This doesn’t mean the latter has to be an out and out scoundrel. They just need a few interesting layers. Take good-looking Dave out of my fun novella How to get Hitched in Ten Days (which is FREE at the moment). He is heart-broken at having blown a marriage proposal to girlfriend, Jazz, and has to enrol the help of her best friend Mikey, to win her back. But his attitude to gay Mikey borders on homophobic and makes us question our initial impression that Dave is a decent, lovable guy. It takes the course of the story to find out what is at the root of his supposed prejudice.

And in my new summer novel, out this week, Breakfast under a Cornish Sun, we get to meet unapproachable, grumpy Tremain. The lead character, Kate, sees glimpses of a sensitive guy in him, now and again, and this means – to her annoyance! – she can’t easily write him off as a person not worth knowing. The same with Lucas, the other man (and a Poldark lookalike!) she becomes friends with on her trip to Cornwall. Yes,  he is gorgeous and swarthy and has the darkest, sexiest eyes – but would that alone really be enough to grab the attention of a woman looking for something meaningful?

There are all kinds of flaws in people – like in diamonds that can be cloudy, fractured or chipped – but this makes each one of them special and unique. Absolute clarity can be boring – there is no journey; nothing to discover than what is on the surface. And where is the empathy? If characters have imperfections they are more relatable and that makes us, as readers, more likely to care for them and read to the end. So if you want to keep your reader turning the pages, create an enigmatic hero or heroine with emotional and physical flaws, just like the scar on gorgeous Poldark’s face.