The Final First Draft
This is a
deceptive phrase as it leads you to believe you are done writing. Nay, Dear
Scribe, this is just a starting point. Although this is the first time you pull
your story together placing 50,000 words in order, there is nothing final about
a First Draft. That is to say, enjoy
this time creating. When you are done the left-brain will take over and edit.
Edit and rewrite until you want to throw the story away like a teen smoking pot
in your den.
Let us
focus of the process. You have done all the work creating the structure of your
story (summary, plot, outline, character) now it is time to put up the walls
and see what this castle in your imagination looks like. It is a pleasurable and exciting journey as
the story drags you along as fast as your fingers can type (or scribble if you
are a pad and pen writer). This is the longest part of the process, but one
filled with a creative discovery that will thrill you.
Like I
advised before, write every day at the same time for a determined amount of
time. Leave when the time is up, even if you are mid sentence. I like to daydream
about the story all day long, letting different scenarios germinate and grow
(or disgust and humor me). The most important thing to remember in this process
is to try NOT to be perfect. In fact try to be imperfect as much as you can.
When I read
Stephen King’s On Writing- he was the only real novelist at the time making a
living writing books, so I took his counsel seriously. He discusses at length
about the imperfect First Draft and the magic of letting the work not rely on flawlessness. Then he shares a First Draft of his work (that was already a
popular novel) and I was delighted to read it was pure drivel! You could see
the nuggets of genius that survived the cuts and edits, but in between was word
mud. I felt for the first time freed from my perfectionist brain and that is
when my writing genuinely took off.
When I
write a 1000 word column, the First Draft typically is 3000-4000 words. I type,
pontificate, use the thesaurus like a sacred book and literally play narrative
scrabble with my First Draft. Then I edit, looking first for ramblings (which I
excel at), points that go nowhere and engage the grammar police. That will cut
it down to 2000 words. Then the hardest work begins, cutting the Darlings. All
those big words that you thought made you sound so smart, now just look like I
crawled into a virtual thesaurus. Some of the words actually work, but if I
love it so much it makes me squeal with glee when I read it, that is my first
cut. Then I cut my favorite paragraph. I know this sounds crazy, but it really
does make your writing much stronger and poignant. If I doubt the cutting of
them, I use this test. I throw the sentence up as a Facebook post. I am sure
each one will weigh down my page with multiple up turned thumbs “Like” –ing my
prose. But that NEVER happens. It is always crickets and then I know I was
right to make the cut. I still save it in my “Darlings” file, because it is
fantastic and I am sure I will use it later (never happens). I had one Darling about
my dog chasing the shadows of butterflies while the actual meaty morsel flapped
above his head as he chomped at the pavement. I was sure would be the first
paragraph to win a Nobel Peace Price. I copied and pasted that story into
hundreds of projects and then cut it out. I finally found a story it would take
wings in, only to have my editor ask me not so politely to cut the absurd thing
out.
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