On Writing: Willing to Kill

[waterbird]

I write a lot of crap. I hope, though, that none of you have ever seen it. :) What I mean is that when I start on an idea, I'm often just writing whatever comes to mind, in a very, very rough draft. Then I go back over it and cut a lot of the crap out and reshape the parts that were fairly decent into something somewhat more decent. I suspect

Comments

[norton_gale]

My first drafts are ultra-crappy. It sounds like you write similar to the way I do... get the story out any way you can, even if it's rough and ungrammatical, and then refine, refine, refine. I love chipping away once I've got the meat of the story down.

Here's a discarded first draft, for example:

Harry snuck out to Diagon Alley, his pouch filled with Knuts and Galleons (charmed to be lighter). Most of the shops were still shuttered due to the incursion of Voldemort, and Harry had no idea what he was going to get anyway. What could you possibly buy for your victim that could ease his pain, to erase his memory? He found a small florist’s shop. The proprietor, a round, friendly witch, asked if she could help. He said he wanted a gift to say he was sorry. Thrilled to have a customer, she showed him around.He rejected roses, lilies, carnations. These seemed common, and didn’t seem like flowers Draco would like. There is one more thing I can show you, but they’re very costly. She showed him to a back room filled with rare blooms in

[waterbird]

Oh, thanks for sharing a sample of one of your rough drafts! I love hearing (and, in your case, seeing) how other people write, and it's good to know I'm not the only one who starts out really rough.

I've mostly written quite short pieces so far, and I tend to start out with a few notes about where I want the story to go and work from there. But sometimes a scene will just explode out of nowhere and I write what I can and then start figuring out the rest.

Then there are a few longer fics (all still unfinished *sigh*) for which I've drawn up extensive outlines and elaborate backstories -- and sometimes that helps the first round of writing go a bit more smoothly, but not necessarily. Sometimes all that backstory just gets in the way. But that's another topic altogether! LOL

Thanks again for sharing your draft. :)

[dark0feenix]

I second what you and waterbird say: first there's a lot of crap and then a lot of cutting. Shaping the rough cut is much more fun. That's when the real writing starts in my case. And what's best, I learned it all by writing fan fiction! When I was younger I just wrote crap without cutting a word. Eurgh. :P

[norton_gale]

I've learned more by writing fanfic than I ever learned in writing classes and workshops. It's been an invaluable experience.

[celandineb]

How crappy are your first drafts?

Not very, actually. It's rare that I cut very much (except for drabbles), or for that matter add very much. I revise wording and tighten, but most of the time the bulk of what is in the first draft is there in the end.

If it's really crap, e.g. I've written myself into a corner, or I just dislike the way it's going, I'm more likely to abandon it completely.

[waterbird]

That's great. I really admire people who can do that. I think if I wrote more -- and more regularly -- I might get to the point where my drafts are not so rough. Maybe.

And I've got loads of very rough drafts that aren't worth pursuing any further -- lots of failure on the road to the occasional success. :)

[celandineb]

Some of it's probably experience-related, but some is just how a person works. I write the same way when I write non-fiction (professional papers, etc.), in as much as I might do more reorganizing, but I don't generally cut out large chunks. Whereas a friend of mine who went through the same grad program and has written as much professionally as I is much more "get the words down on paper, lots and lots, and don't worry about quality or organization to start with" and then goes back and does major revision and cutting and rearranging (she used to physically print out, cut up, and rearrange). I think whatever works for a given person is the way to go!

[waterbird]

Yeah, I think a lot of it is personal style, but I do notice that when I'm in the writing groove, things come more smoothly. I'll probably always have a somewhat rough and tumble approach, though. :)

[waterbird]

I love This American Life. I had sort of forgotten about it until an intern at work mentioned it and then I subscribed to the podcast, which is great on days when work is quiet. I'm really glad I've rediscovered it.

I like working with multiple betas, too, because each reader has such a unique perspective.

[snottygrrl]

ironically i was just reading mistful's post about her editorial letter for her book. if you haven't seen it you should check it out because it's v. on topic to your post. and interesting.

i edit as i go when i write. i need to clean up in order to move on, so i don't do a first draft per se, i write a page or two, reread, clean up, write more, reread the whole thing refine the first bit and clean up the second bit, repeat. i'm probably really odd that way.

[waterbird]

Yes, I did read her post. I just love the editing process and, yes, being able to kill stuff is so important, I think.

I used to rework things as I wrote, but I found it kept me from actually moving forward. So now I try not to get too caught up on revisions during the first draft and that's helped me a lot.

It's always so interesting to me to learn how other writers work. Thank you!

[waterbird]

Sometimes just writing whatever comes to mind can work really well for me, too.

Hmm, I'd probably have to dig around for old versions of stuff I've written. Google docs does keep a revision history ... but the really rough drafts are probably really embarrassing. :)

I love hearing about how other writers work.