Howdy,
Matt Bird recommends accepting that the rough draft/1st draft/completed manuscript will need to be entirely rewritten. I’ve embraced that guidance, and have embarked upon what I’m calling the great rewrite. So far it’s been going great! Solid, solid advice. Going into the editing phase with the mindset that the whole damn thing needs to be rewritten is liberating. Right now, I’m roughly 14 chapters in on the rewrite which puts me at about 32% complete (at least chapter-wise).
Here’s how I’ve been going about it. First, as I’ve detailed before in a previous post, I outlined my completed manuscript per the recommendation of Hallie Ephron. As part of the outlining process, I made a notation for each chapter on whether I thought a scene needed to be rewritten or heavily edited. I think I landed at about 2/3 marked for rewrite and 1/3 marked for heavy editing. I’ve discovered that closer to 80% need a complete rewrite, and those that are edited are thoroughly revised.
Overall, the process has been fun and is definitely worthwhile.