You just wrote the best post of your life. It's perfect. It's just perfect. You push "Post" and feel great about yourself.
Then you notice a mistake here, one there, yet another somewhere else. That seemingly perfect sentence? It's now askew and weird. What were you thinking?! You now edited 4 times and it's just not right. Eventually, you just give up. You'll do better next time.
Congratulations! You made the writer's mistake number one: You fell in love with your first draft!
I don't care who you are: Hemingway, Paulo Coelho or a random author on steemit, your first draft will always be the inferior version of whatever you try to write( literally the worst!). It's very easy to look at it and think that this the best you can do, you have no word left to add, after all. That's just your fear, disguised as common-sense, whispering in your ear. Ignore it.
Stephen King, in his book, "On Writing " ( which if you haven't read, you're doing yourself a great disservice ) says this:
Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.
The first draft's role is for you to put down all the ideas and sentences that dance around in your head, Pin them down on the (virtual)paper before the disappear into thin air, as ideas tend to do. After you did that, don't just release them into wild. That's the moment to really look closely at them!
What did you catch?! Maybe, it was exactly what you were looking for, the exact idea-specie that you expected. But maybe, actually more likely, you caught a very different beast than you set up to find. That's why you need to really analyze the first draft and see if you actually wrote what you wanted to write.
You see, writing tends to get a life of its own, the more space you give it, the more you write. Connection appear. Sentences metamorphosis. It shifts right before your eyes. It's MAGIC!
The first thing i'd do is let the draft settle. Yes, just let it settle. Move away from the computer, do something else, come back in an hour. You'll have a new perspective immediately! So many times, re-reading my first draft with new eyes helped me see just how shitty it was...but that's good! I could improve it.
After taking a long hard look at your writing, start by identifying your main THEME. What's the story REALLY about? It's not really easy to do that. I remember a little exercise our teacher asked as to do. Write a little story about how a day at the office looked for me. Here's an extract:
I have two monitors, each serves its own purpose. One is for excel, always opened to the right tab. The other for everything else. I look to the right and I'm automatically focused on te document, I look to the left and it's e-mails, facebook, stuff..."
I thought I was writing about my day. my workshop teacher correctly pointed out that the theme was CONTROL. It surprised me and with that in mind i hashed out the rest of the story and FOCUSED on the main theme.
Boom: 100% improvement.
With the theme in mind, move to the first sentence. The first sentence is the hardest sentence because it sets up the whole tone. I had re-write whole drafts because of bad first sentences.
Now try to look at the ending. IS it powerful to you, or sad, or a nice conclusion? The ending for me is like dessert, it can make or break a whole meal.
With that, you are ready to OPEN the window. Share it with a friend, your editor(if you are lucky enough to have one )or someone else you trust that they could give you some insight into what's missing (hint; something is ALWAYS missing)
Wait for their words to come back, take them in consideration and now re-write it again. That's the 3rd draft and might be very different from the first. No matter, it is certainly better. I'd bet my SBD on that!
From this on, you are on your own! If you have time, I'll let it stay overnight and look again in the morning. you'll naturally make new changes. If you are a perfectionist, definitely do that!
At last, to give you the dessert I promised! The best way to help your drafts is read other people's drafts. Try to help them, try to see what they do with your help and learn from it. Remember: to write is humane, to edit is divine : and respect that.
One day, you'll experience the unique joy of noticing just how bad your first draft is!
Then you can get to the real work :)
Haha! I should really have this printed and hung on a wall. A lot of times, I do fall in love with my first draft, but I've learned to let it sit for a while before I revisit it. Time really has a way to show the flaws in your work. Thanks for sharing this. I hope more people get to read this!
Don't I know it? At the same workshop, I managed to put out an incredible little story. I loved it.
then the teacher told us to re-write it, totally deconstruct it and see what happens.
I was like...but it's perfect!! I could not change it. "I shared it with friends. they love it too!" he said that's a good sign that it has potential :))
Keep that in mind :) also, sometimes "good enough" is good enough.
If you want to read the story: https://steemit.com/writing/@razvanelulmarin/fear-and-loathing-in-the-cage
Nice food for thought! Will definitely give it a read, I hope you get a chance to read a story I published on Steemit that was just a first draft haha https://steemit.com/descriptionsonthespot/@jedau/descriptions-on-the-spot-esoteric
This I would consider to be the most important tip to be successful as a writer on steemit or anywhere else! Thanks for pointing it out as this will help me. And I must get a hold of Stephen King now...:))
seriously that book is worth it.
A good lesson for all we want to create in life, developing a pattern of striving for the best in all we do.
I live by this rule -- the vomit draft.
Sean Platt has a great saying:
First draft, say it.
Second draft, say what you mean.
Third draft, say it well.
haha. in my first draft of this it was exactly this line: FIRST DRAFT = WORD VOMIT :)) glad we think the same..that being said...fuck it, man. you rule
Good post and interesting ideas within it. But I have a slightly different perspective.
All my life, until 1 year ago I liked a good essay, a good book or just a good write made by professionals: writers, columnists, journalists. Then, from nowhere a new category of people started to write: everyday people. Without any training. At the beginning I was outraged: these peoples can't write, they don't have the right skills, they are so clumsy. I don't like "their style".
And I was right and wrong in the same time and this realisation was a step forward for me: the "style" was "inferior" than that of a writer but THE MESSAGE was sent as effective as for the writer's work. People didn't mind the format, the style, the good grammar, the fallacies, the biases, etc. The readers just got the message and provided a good feedback.
That's my new point of view about writing: a writer could do a better job, but anyone else can transmit clumsily the message. And even to make a difference.
Therefore, I agree with you: the first, second, third drafts are bad, but it doesn't matter. The reader will take what's good. It's like this: "I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg." Yes, you understood it. :)
Cheers.
I totally agree the message is important, but I do believe in the power of words. I guess what I'm trying to push for here is this; improvement is possible for everyone as long as they are not lazy and just "post".
thank you for your comment!
Really helpful post, I definitely need to remember all this, it's so easy to lose focus and stray off topic. Thanks!
:) glad you found it useful. I must say that stuff like this AND more can be found in Stephen King's book. check it out!
Good advice. Sometimes life gets in the way of good writing though ;).
Ha! These graphics are great! If I love the content I love the edit.
bingo
This is definitely your strong suit. You are an excellent teacher on here.
oh man, thanks!...
This rings a little true with me as well. I'm an edit button mashing monster. I will edit things sometimes up to 10 times (even my comments sometimes!) before I get a version I'm happy with. This is just bad in general because your followers on http://steemstats.com get notifications not only when you post new posts, but also when you edit them. The system registers it as a new post under the same URL, so it notifies everyone. So it can get annoying for them, and you don't want that.
that's something that i had no clue of. really? i must try it now :))
Edit the f&ck out of everything and eventually it will look good!!
tl:dr right here!
Thanks for the great tips. Writing for me is painful , stressful and fraught with insecurities but this platform gives the potential for reward for the pain.
Did you hear about that Newspaper Blackout book? It's a concept by Austin Kleon, who essentially upcycles newspaper articles by removing clutter to find the poetry written inside.
Good advice, though it's sometimes hard to follow. I once tried writing a first draft at night, going to sleep, editing it the next morning only to find that it still looked all right. Falling out of love with your first draft is actually a separate skill, one that I've yet to master.
interesting perspective!
Thanks!