Writing – On Drafts

 

And sometimes you lose what you’ve written completely and have to start again. That what you’re reading now.

Writing is usually done in “drafts”. Versions of the story that are crafted and changed over time. For some writers, like Rex Stout who wrote the “Nero Wolfe” mysteries, there were very few drafts. He got his stories done the way he wanted almost from the first. Other authors will go through many, many revisions on their work. It can be a maddening process. If done correctly, the result is a focused and well-crafted story.

This is not the first draft of this post, for example. Somehow I lost the first page or two of the first draft. All I found was the third page. It began mid-sentence so it was clear I’d begun elsewhere. I have no idea where it went. No doubt it will turn up now that I’ve begun again. Or it may be gone forever.

Drafts are like that. You “finish” one. But when you go back and read it again, the story is awful. The phrasing is awkward, the storytelling shudders along, the characters are rubbish. Draft One is a wreck. Now begins the sifting process. Is there anything good here? Can the story be salvaged or should it be abandoned? Even a good draft will need work. Move parts of the story around to improve the storytelling. Develop characters or discard them.

There’s a concept in writing called “kill your darlings” that comes from the great American author, William Faulkner. It means that no matter how beautifully you’ve written a passage, no matter how much time you’ve put into a sub-plot, no matter how much you love a character, if they are slowing the story, they have to go. When you have invested hours, days, months or years to get to where you are in a story’s life, realizing that you need to go back, again, can feel awful.

The goal is that each draft moves the story forward. There are times when resolving one issue with a story creates ripple problems down the line. Which sometimes means another draft.

One reason that short stories attract me is that I can finish and move on with fewer drafts. The storyteller in me is strong. The push to tell the next story is powerful. Because there are fewer “moving parts” to a short story, I can arrive at the end of the process more quickly.

The end of the draft process can have an arbitrary feel to it. Finding the finish line is more by feeling than by checkpoints. At some point, I simply look at the latest draft and decide that I’ve done everything I can. Not that I think it’s perfect. I don’t believe in perfection in this world. An internal relay closes, a gear turns, and the story is done. I have nothing more to offer that piece.

That’s the final draft.

Peace

JD