I go through a lot of drafts. I agree with Gore Vidal who said "I have nothing to say, only to add." The novella I plan to send to a magazine this month is on its eleventh draft. But Numero Dos is my darling.
The first draft, well, that's hard work. Sometimes the words flow like a waterfall but on other days it feels like pushing a marble uphill with your nose. Just trying to get something down on paper.
But the second draft, ah...
You see, it's the first time I actually get to read my story. It exists from beginning to end. I see it with all its gifts and flaws. I usually find pieces that need to move to different parts of the story, and realize that whole paragraphs or even scenes didn't make it from my teeming brain to the computer screen. This is the part of writing I like best.
After that each draft shifts more from the building process to the polishing process. There is a danger, of course, in polishing too much, to the point where you lose the excitement that you started the story with.
To be honest, if there were more markets available for my stories I would probably do fewer drafts. Hey, I can only send so many stories per year to the three or four pro mags.
But also, being honest, on that eleventh draft I still find a few improvements to make...
With you all the way! I sweat out the first draft, and then go over it with a loving comb the second, and the third I get all sorts of ideas as to the way it should (or should have gone)...
ReplyDeleteRob again... Glad to have my opinion confirmed by a competent authority.
DeleteI'm like that - second draft - with a short story, Rob. It's interesting how I differ when writing a novel. So many people have first drafts, second, fifth etc. I edit while I go. By the time I'm finished a novel all the way through, it's done. I've gone over every chapter a dozen times on my way (I reread at least the chapter before, when I sit down to write.) Then it's just one full read to see if I've covered every possible plot hole etc. Of course, then the publisher's editor may have something to say!!
ReplyDeleteRob here: Interesting. My novels went through as many drafts as my stories, or close to it.
DeleteI'm so careful - I proofread, edit, and revise multiple times before I submit anything for publication...yet I've seldom published anything, even a poem, where I didn't eventually wish I'd changed something - a word, a comma, an indent...revision is the hardest and most important part of the writing process.
ReplyDeleteI think it was Mike Mallory who said he would still be correcting copies of his books while signing them in bookstores...
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Rob. My first draft is usually the product of dozens of cut-and-paste edits, additions, revised openings, moved and changed details, and at least one horrible ending that I know doesn't work even as I type it. That whole mess exists only to give me something to make better. But by the time I reach that full story, the first time I go through the whole document from start to finish, I usually figure out where I'm going. And I agree with you about the shrinking markets. Right now, I have over 20 stories under submission, some out for over a year. It's hard to come up with new ideas when you get no feedback. It's like trying to play racquetball into Jell-o.
ReplyDeleteMy first draft is a detailed outline. My 2nd draft is the story.
ReplyDeleteDave, this is how all my novels worked. My "outline" was a scene list in chronological order, like a film/TV storyboard. I reworked it constantly until the sequence felt right, then began writing the actual book.
DeleteSteve, I do the same with my short stories. Outlines for my novels tend to be 6-10 pages, short stories 1-2 pages. After writing the story/novel, usually two rounds of line editing (one after finishing, one a few weeks later), but nothing substantial beyond that.
DeleteI have often said that my first draft is a full-length outline. I expect that not one sentence will arrive in the final version unchanged - which, of course, is quite liberating.
DeleteStory or novel, I agree. The first draft is the one I put everything into just in case, knowing I can always take it out later if it makes me cringe or doesn't fit. I also write it in a state of terror that I won't make it to the end. The second draft is both relaxing in comparison and better, because that's when I begin to cut t60he lousy darlings. As for when there's nothing to fix, wasn't there some ancient Greek philosopher or mathematician who explained you can never get to the tree, because you're always walking halfway there, then halfway there, then halfway there? The last frontier is when I have to do a brief reading aloud for an event, and the allotted time is 60 or 90 seconds, two minutes, three, or even five. That's when you know which words truly matter.
ReplyDelete"State of terror," yeah.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to get to my second draft. First drafts, particularly of my novels, are agony. As Hemmingway supposedly said, "First drafts are shit." Usually, when I finish the second draft, I begin to see my story finally begin to emerge, though much work remains. Of course, drafting on a computer these days muddies up what exactly consititutes a "draft." For me, the first time I reach my final scene, I call it my first draft. However, I'm a third into the first draft of a novel and I've probably tweaked parts of the opening scene, let alone other scenes, multiple times. To say nothing of scribbling notes and even dialogue in coming scenes. In short, is my first scene a first draft or draft twelve before I reach the final scene for the first time? All that counts, in the end, is how it all turns out.
ReplyDelete