Back in April, Max Barry wrote an excellent article for LitReactor on some of the common frustrations surrounding the first draft.
I want to add my two cents to this topic because the first draft is something I’m routinely asked about — and I think this process gets a lot of attention for a lot of wrong reasons. To be specific: it’s my opinion that writers' anxiety surrounding the first draft is wholly axiomatic as to why it’s often so frustrating to begin with. Look, the first draft isn’t exactly the most important step in the writing process (more on that later), but it is, of course, thefirst step; it’s where a story leaves your head and takes residence in the world. So, it’s natural for this to be a process wrought with indecision, second-guessing …show more content…
Don’t believe me? There are early drafts of The Great Gatsby out there and, trust me, the writing is horrible. Of course, the final product is something else entirely. Flaubert was also notorious for turning a mess into a masterpiece; he claimed it took years to get the words right. But this is the guy who wrote Madame Bovary, so when it comes to the final product the proof is on the page. Writers have to get over the idea that writing is a wholly creative process, and that editing is a cerebral shift into cold concretes. Editing is a creative endeavor. It’s a reapplication of ideas that affects everything from the macro elements of a story to its semantics. Personally, I don’t know anyone who claims to get it right the first time — and someone who says otherwise is probably either lying or too willfully blind to recognize shit when they read it. The creative mind is a messy place; you’re simply not going to translate abstractions from the place you dream into a palpable written message without a few translation errors at the beginning. You need to have confidence, so much confidence that you can be comfortable with the fact that you’ve just written shit, because you know it will get better. The good news is this: the only person who has to see the first draft is
I want to add my two cents to this topic because the first draft is something I’m routinely asked about — and I think this process gets a lot of attention for a lot of wrong reasons. To be specific: it’s my opinion that writers' anxiety surrounding the first draft is wholly axiomatic as to why it’s often so frustrating to begin with. Look, the first draft isn’t exactly the most important step in the writing process (more on that later), but it is, of course, thefirst step; it’s where a story leaves your head and takes residence in the world. So, it’s natural for this to be a process wrought with indecision, second-guessing …show more content…
Don’t believe me? There are early drafts of The Great Gatsby out there and, trust me, the writing is horrible. Of course, the final product is something else entirely. Flaubert was also notorious for turning a mess into a masterpiece; he claimed it took years to get the words right. But this is the guy who wrote Madame Bovary, so when it comes to the final product the proof is on the page. Writers have to get over the idea that writing is a wholly creative process, and that editing is a cerebral shift into cold concretes. Editing is a creative endeavor. It’s a reapplication of ideas that affects everything from the macro elements of a story to its semantics. Personally, I don’t know anyone who claims to get it right the first time — and someone who says otherwise is probably either lying or too willfully blind to recognize shit when they read it. The creative mind is a messy place; you’re simply not going to translate abstractions from the place you dream into a palpable written message without a few translation errors at the beginning. You need to have confidence, so much confidence that you can be comfortable with the fact that you’ve just written shit, because you know it will get better. The good news is this: the only person who has to see the first draft is