Defiling the Pristine Page

In his book Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts, Matt Bell refers to the first draft as the “exploratory draft,” which is appropriate. All the ideas chored out of your head (see previous post) are hints at a greater story—dots to connect through character, plot, and dialogue. This draft often feels like navigating a dark room with a pen light just bright enough to show the edge of the coffee table. That’s not to say you won’t bump your knee. You’re going to make wrong turns and backtrack to figure out where it happened and why. It’ll involve time and frustration, people who don’t understand why you’re trying and more who don’t care.

Don’t write the story for them. Write it for yourself, not because you think it’s the way to get rich and famous (which is Mega Millions lottery rare). Write the story you want to read, one that speaks to you and compels you to keep going. No one is going to read it until you let them, so write like that. Make wrong choices, because sometimes it helps you find the right ones. Every word you write is going to be improved by later drafts. In fact, most of the first draft will disappear into the ether of the backspace key, but the second and third drafts need its shoulders to stand on.

Process in Practice

I’m a big fan of the number 3, especially when it comes to writing. The number is sure to show up again in future posts, but as applied to the first draft, my personal process has three steps: get it down, get it right, and get on with it. Those steps correlate with the three major drafts of a novel: discovery, rewrite, and polish.

Each of these drafts digs deeper into the story you’re creating. Here in the discovery draft, your focus is on the plot: what happens, why, and what happens as a result. This should, of course, involve characters, scenes, and dialogue, but those meatier elements will get plenty of attention during the second draft. You should also swing for the fences with word choice and sentence structure, but save the microscopic examination of your prose for the third draft. For now, your primary goal is to get the words down.

Contrary to the “rule” I heard back when I paid attention to them, whenever I finish a chapter, I read it. It became a necessity while writing (or rather rewriting) the second version of The Road Cain Walks, which I’ll describe in depth in a later post. As it applies here, I would run with an idea until—after a hundred or so pages—it fell apart, leaving me sifting through the debris for the salvageable scenes. Then, I’d start over. After ten years and way too many restarts, I figured out the first key ingredient to my writing.

Though it makes me a slower writer, I don’t move on from a chapter until I’m satisfied with its trajectory. I reread and polish the language to get the prose as clean as possible (I’ll get into the problems this caused me in yet another future post). By the time I’m finished—usually within a day, depending on the length of the chapter—I have a decent idea of where the story needs to go next and more confidence I can get it there. Again, every newly shined word is doomed to the afterlife of murdered darlings, but they’ve served their purpose by building my confidence so I can brutally take them out.

Of course, I’m not prescribing this as a cure-all. Some writers need that blinders-on mad dash to the finish line to keep their interest in a story from fizzling. The key is to try different approaches until you find what works best for you.

Write Every Day, but Also Don’t

Another prevalent “tip” you’ll read at some point is that you need to write every day. If you’re the type of person that loses motivation among the daily grind, maybe you do. On the other end of the spectrum, I stick with a story until I feel I’ve done it justice with little chance of losing interest. Whether discipline or stubbornness, it allows me to take breaks and shift my focus from the job that pays (and blog posts no one reads) to my writing as necessary.

Whatever approach you choose, make sure it accounts for your mental health. When a story becomes too much, walk away for a while. Brainstorm plot ideas or research aspects that will provide depth and authenticity. These writing-adjacent tasks are as important as getting the words down because they infuse those words with purpose, renewing your enthusiasm for your story’s potential and pushing you through the next section you’ll write.

Plotting vs. Pantsing: The Unending Debate

When you hear the words plotting and pantsing (explained in my previous post), what is really being discussed is craft and art. Neither method is completely devoid of the other. Devoted plotters are as creative as pantsers but with a heaping spoonful of structure mixed in, whereas pantsers aren’t drifting completely unguided down a river with no foreseeable end. The key is balancing this creative yin and yang as much as possible, but for my first drafts, I set the craft aside and let the art take over. Again, this is a discovery draft and should very much resemble an old map with “Here, there be dragons” scrawled at the top of every blank page. Once I’ve vanquished those story monsters, I turn to craft as a counterbalance.

The King of the Story Monsters

A boogeyman lives within every writer, its name uttered in hushed whispers in case it works by the same rules as Beetlejuice. You’ve probably heard it called “Writer’s Block,” but it has another, more appropriate name.

Unless a writer completely blanks on language as a concept, their ability to write is never blocked. They haven’t run out of ideas or the words to give them life. Instead, they’ve stared into a clear night sky and become lost in the enormity of the universe. “Perfectionist’s block”* gets closer to the pin. At least for me, the block comes from having too many options, not too few. The power of a writer is the ability to make literally anything happen, but infinite options can sometimes be as crippling as none. My simple cure is to just put something down. Anything that bridges the gap between the previous chapter and the next. Remember, it will end up in the garbage when you do the spring cleaning of a second draft rewrite. By then, you’ll have a clearer picture of where your story is heading.

Done, But Not Quite

And then one day, you’ll type the words The End. Maybe add the date to memorialize the accomplishment. Which you should. Be proud. Celebrate. Go grab an afternoon beer if that’s your thing or reward yourself some other way. This road is littered with dead ideas from writers who lost the nerve or doubted themselves, but you persevered with a story you may or may not be ready to show others.

This is where I made my mistake with that first version of The Road Cain Walks. I considered it done. For me, revision was a synonym of editing, so I ran spell check, fixed what it told me to, and started looking for agents. At the end of that cautionary tale of “too good to be true,” I self-published what again was the first draft of a story with an entire process ahead, the lathe that shapes a block of wood into art.

I’ll save those next critical steps for future posts, but the key lesson is this: the goal of the first draft is to get the plot right. Any minor tweaks to the writing, no matter how good you get the sentences to sound, is a coat of polish on a lump of coal you’ll eventually stress down into a diamond.

So type “The End,” celebrate, and walk away for as long as you can. If you have another idea waiting in the wings, start on that. If not, read until inspiration strikes. Put distance between yourself and the story so you can come to the next draft with fresh eyes and, with luck, perspective on what it would be like to live in the world you’ve created, because that’s exactly what you’re about to do.

*If I remembered where I heard it, I’d credit that author here, but my brain is a Slip N’ Slide.