Okay, I’m
still trying to get caught up on things after a whirlwind of publicity stuff
for The Fold. And to be
honest, the storm flags are still blowing a bit. So I just wanted to offer some quick advice
on drafts. Specifically, how to approach
my first draft.
As I’ve
mentioned here a few times before, I tend to treat my first draft as the
"just finish it" part of writing.
I just want to get it done with a beginning, an end, and the majority of
points in between. I also don't hold
back. I let dialogue, descriptions, and
action scenes run on a bit longer than they probably should. A lot of it’s not perfect, but I
know I'll start cutting in the next draft or two, so there's no reason to worry
about length now. The most important
thing is to get the overall framework done. Personally, I find it's a lot easier to deal
with the small things when the big things aren't looming over me.
A lot of
folks I’ve talked to try to do this, but they get caught in early-editing mode. Ten pages in and they’re going back to edit, or rethink a character, or to tweak the structure. Forward motion crashes to a halt because the
writer’s spending all their time looking back.
Now, in all
fairness, a few people can do this and it works fine for them. It’s how Kevin Smith writes. He goes in blocks of ten or twelve pages,
writing, rewriting, and polishing until they’re done. Then he moves on to the next ten.
If you’re
one of the folks who can do this, power to you.
But in my experience, with all the writers I’ve talked to over
the years, those folks are a rarity. Most of us, alas, have to go
through the whole thing, then go through it again. And again.
So, if
you’re one of us, too, here’s my quick piece of advice.
Don’t look
back.
When
working on a first draft, I can read the page I left off on. That’s it. If I stop halfway through the
page, I can look at the top half before I start writing again. That’s it.
If I ended at the top of a page, too bad.
If I close
the document, I’ll make a note somewhere else of what page I was on. When I reopen it, I go right to the page I
left off on. No slow paging through the
document. Get back to where I left off
and start writing again.
Under no
circumstances while writing will I hit the up arrow or page up or push the
scroll bar. None of that. Not even to go up to the last paragraph. No corrections, no re-reading, no going back
to adjust. I don’t go back to fix typos or formatting or anything. This draft moves in one direction and it
doesn’t stop moving in that direction.
I do not
stop. Ever. Until it is done.
This is an
adjustment, yes. And a very tough one. It might not work for everyone. But I’ve tried it twice now and found it
helps. There’s a lot of stuff to clean up, yeah, but I’m getting to the clean
up stage a lot faster than I would normally.
Y’see,
Timmy, forcing myself to only go forward means I’m forcing myself to
write. I don’t get to rethink
yesterday’s work or tweak that first encounter or even double check if I usedthe right spelling of prophesy (I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter in a first
draft). I just write until the first
draft is done.
So try going
forward. Only forward. Never back. Not one line.
Next time,
by popular demand from my fan page, we’re going to talk a bit about
screenwriting, clan wars, and hunting.
Until then,
go write.
