From first to final draft

How The Hug Button changed over nine drafts (and nearly a year)

Have you ever wondered how much a manuscript changes from the first, to the final draft?

If so, then this post is for you.

My new picture book The Hug Button (which was illustrated by Rebecca Ashdown) published in July. I’ve written before about what I did to promote it six months and a month before publication as well as during the week of release itself.

But today I thought I’d share the very first draft of The Hug Button, as well as the final manuscript which was written almost a year, and nine versions, later.

I’ll also outline some of the feedback from the editors at my publishers Oxford University Press to explain why I made the changes I did.

Every editor I’ve worked with over the last five years has taught me something different - I think understanding why they ask you to make changes is part of the process of learning more about the craft of writing picture books.

The initial idea

The Hug Button was one of several ideas that I pitched to my editor at OUP back in the autumn of 2022. This was an idea that the editor and team liked, so I started work on a first draft.

It went through four drafts before the editor felt it was ready to take it to an acquisitions meeting. They asked the illustrator Rebecca to do some character sketches which they also took to the same meeting.

(FYI All the work done prior to an acquisitions meeting is unpaid and there is never any guarantee that a text will get bought.)

However, luckily The Hug Button got through acquisitions first time (hurrah!) and I began working with a different editor a few months later on more edits.

Most of the structural edits were made prior to the acquisitions meeting so this round of edits was quite small by comparison.

There were also some minor tweaks made to the text once the artwork was in place but the final version I’m sharing here is pretty much exactly what is in the printed copy.

This story was inspired by the hug button I drew on my son’s wrist when he first started school and struggled to say goodbye to me at the gates. I always knew the title of this book would be The Hug Button because it explains what the story is about and sounds friendly and appealing.

Some manuscripts go through huge sweeping, structural edits before you can begin line editing. Others like my first published book The Perfect Fit have less major editorial work required. (You can take a look at the first and final versions of that book in this post here.)

The first draft

The first draft of The Hug Button that I have saved is dated 14th November 2022 although I had scribbled some rough ideas down in a notebook before then.

I always save every single draft separately with the date in the title so I have all versions of a manuscript in case I ever need to refer back to any of them. (I highly recommend all writers do the same!)

So, without further ado, here’s the first draft of The Hug Button in all its unedited glory…