How long do you let a first draft marinate for?

I recently finished writing the first draft of my fantasy novel, which was 136k words.

After reading "On Writing" I noticed Stephen King seems to swear by letting a first draft sit for a while, 6 weeks if I recall, before diving in for edits. Is this like, a hard and fast rule? Does it apply to all or is it preference?

I did a very quick google search and didn't find much on editing habits of any other prolific writers or really anyone.

Additionally, what are some good resources out there on editing in general? It seems like it could and should be mad complex... There can be so many different facets to it, and I'm not so sure where to start.

But I'm chomping at the bit to edit, being patient is hard!

 

I think six weeks is reasonable, but one thing I'm not sure is ever discussed is the length it took to do the first draft and how much time the writer has to writing and editing to begin with.

Stephen King can write a novel in a few months but not everyone can do that. I think he said he wrote The Running Man in one week, so waiting 6 weeks would put him just 7 weeks from his pen even touching the paper.

But if someone spends a year writing something, they may be months from creating the first few chapters, so maybe reducing the six weeks is reasonable. But if you've taken a year to write something, what's the difference between four or six weeks?

 

You get to make your own rules on when and how to edit your work until you start working with an outside editor. If you want to do some immediate editing, go for it. When you're content with the first edit, you can put the story away and wait a while to do the next edit. The first edit is only the beginning unless you're terribly good or simply terrible.

 

I wait between subsequent drafts (2nd to 3rd, etc) but not from first to second. I see editing as an iterative process. I don’t try to do it all at once, and I don’t need distant objectivity for my very first round of it (aka, structural edits for things I noticed while drafting).

I do take time to create a plan for how I’m going to attack my edits, such as doing a reverse outline, marking changes by scene, etc, so I’m not putting words down on day 1, but I’m not putting in a drawer either. I do avoid two common pitfalls: I like editing more than drafting, so I don’t burn out, and I have no problem making significant changes/murdering my darlings.

 

You don't have to wait to dive into revision. If you want to start now, start now. But then I would let it sit for a bit before going through it again. There is a benefit to looking at something with fresh eyes. A lot of the time I will do a round of edits right away. I'll think I've got it to where I want it, but then after some time passes I'm able to see things that didn't jump out during the initial editing. Don't wait if you want to start editing now, but I would plan to come back to your work some time after that. Good luck!

 

I see drafting and editing to be fundamentally different things. At the extreme, a second draft doesn't even touch the previous text - some people start with a blank page and write the story again, but better because they know the characters and what beats they want to hit far more clearly.
I don't fall into that extreme, but the mental definition of what a draft is needs to encompass it.

My drafting is about changes to the story structure - things like removing spare characters, or pushing description and exposition forward in the story to improve the pace of the good bits, or reworking passages that don't fit the ending-as-it-finally-turned out. So I'd reserve it for changes that require a full re-read of the story to find all the places where they are mentioned or that they interact with. I have a very good memory for text - and I try to leave the 2nd draft enough time that I can't remember how I wrote many of the individual sentences (excepting maybe the opening and closing lines and a few punchy bits). 6-18 months.
I give family readers the raw 1st draft chapter-by-chapter. Four people in particular are a teacher who zaps any typos, a lifelong book-club fanatic who has read thousands of novels, a real-live Young Person, and my wife. They are such a good focus group that publishing companies ought to hire them. And they know my writing very well so the raw 1st draft is ok - they see past enough of the problems and the sooner I get their feedback the better.

Back to editing: I have several parallel processes. I edit as I go along and aim for the 1st draft to be free of literal errors. That is, except for punctuation, which slows me down too much - I edit the punctuation once the 2nd-draft is complete and it takes me a few days.
In parallel with that, some edits open bigger problems or need a name or a term to be Find All'd - I put those in markup comments and find those can easily take a couple of weeks.
And thematic problems arising from the editing I keep on a separate list together with my family-readers' and beta-readers' feedback that I want to try and do in the next draft.

After 2nd draft I go to beta-readers, and they don't need to wait six weeks or six months because they've never seen it before. And then it's however long to weigh up/come to terms with what they say - but for me the 3rd and any subsequent drafts don't need the delay since it's not a self-appraisal anymore. One opportunity to have my say about myself should be enough.

 

About a Month. It gives me time to step away from it.