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How to Write
Do Not fall in love with your first drafts
The best advice I have come to believe writers should offer as well as graciously receive can be summed up in one wise imperative: Do not fall in love with your writings!
Sometimes writers forget that when they put words down on paper or on the computer screen, those poems or stories or articles are not indelible. Writing is a process that happens in stages: we first get an idea, let it simmer in our heads, then we apply ourselves to the joy of the first draft. To me, this getting-it-all-down stage is the most exciting of all. It seems we are driven by the whisperings of the muse to not lift our hands until the piece is written.
Unfortunately, some writers mistakenly think they are done once the first draft is written. They could not be further from the truth. After a first draft, writers should walk away from their new creations, leave them alone for a day or two, so that when they return, they can read those pieces with a kind of new eye.
Few writings make their last stop with the first draft. They keep on rolling draft after draft until they reach their destination and, satisfied, type out the final draft.
What prevents writers from doing their job is simply this: they become enamored with their own sense of accomplishment. They love what they write and feel almost guilty to revise it. They fall in love with their own words, turns of phrases, descriptive passages. To tinker with it is out of the question because they strongly feel if it’s not broken, why fix it? But a day or two away from that gem allows writers to recognize the flaws that went unnoticed in the first drafts first reading.
We would not marry the first person who pops into our eyes, would we? We do our best to first get to know the person before we commit ourselves to a wedded lifetime. Now, of course, the analogy goes no further. We would not want to change the other person, but we most certainly would be wise to change our first draft over and over again to strengthen it.
There is much work to do in the revision stage. Unnecessary words, phrases, sentences, even paragraphs and pages need to be deleted. Consider a written work like a boat that cannot sail if overloaded with unneeded cargo. We too must consider throwing overboard the flotsam and jetsam of that which weighs down, holds back, sinks an otherwise good piece of writing.
Good writers must also be good critics of their own writings. They need to wear more than one hat if they hope to get their work published. They do well to place themselves in the editors seat and put their writing on the stand, see if it passes the test of good writing: Does it draw in the reader from line one? Does it hold onto the reader with enough interest to keep that person reading to the end of the piece? Are the words producing vivid images in the readers mind? Is the reader clear about what is being read? Are the word choices fresh and precise? Is the main idea carried through or divided into tangents unconnected to the story? Does it finally end where it should so the reader walks away satisfied? Or does it take the reader on a journey that ends in raised eyebrows, shrugging shoulders, shakings of the head?
Don’t fall in love with your writing! Get in the habit of wanting your work to be as near perfect as you can deliver it. Don’t worry that words must be deleted from it. If you like them so much, save them in a notebook for another story or poem. Remember that writing, to return to the above boat analogy, is a hard voyage on waters that can or cannot become troubled. A storm comes and the boat capsizes, especially if you’ve taken along more provisions or passengers than the boat can accommodate.
Fall in love, not with your first draft, but with all the steps in the writing process, especially the final one where you manage to see your work published somewhere, viewed by many readers who take their hats off to you and your writing talent.
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