The Between-Draft Lessons

Yes, I talk quite a bit about how writers should, above everything else, write things. This is what they do, so do it - worry about the edits later. In my last post, I really went on about how easy it is to get distracted by editing, revising, perfecting, etc., and how it really takes us out of the actual creative mind. Therefore, I felt it was important to offer a few notes on when we should be doing the non-writing stuff, and how we should commit to it. It's not as difficult as it may sound, but it's an important part of developing the personal process.

Most of us know the different stages of our writing drafts. Starting with notes, we create a rough draft, a second draft, then an endless series of further drafts, followed by a final product (in theory). Each one of these drafts holds a special role: the first one is solely to create - the committing of an idea to paper. The second draft is hammering out broad problems - PoV changes, weak characters, missing/necessary scenes, and plugging up plot holes. By the end of the second draft, we know what characters we need, their purpose, how they interact, and the main plot arc. Subsequent drafts become waves of clean-up - fixing contradictions, filling in weak descriptions, and side-plots. Any draft after that should be polish - making the characters stand out, tweaking dialogue, putting in jokes or other asides, and fine-tuning the critical turns in the plot. At that point, you do the grammar/spelling/punctuation check-up, weed out unnecessary words, then put a bow on it. This is how it should be done - but this doesn't discuss the space between.

In my experience, both as a writer and as a person who has talked with writers, when creating the first draft and even when working the second draft, something happens other than typing; learning. By the end of a draft, plenty of writers discover more about their story and their characters that might never have occurred when they started writing. It is as if the events and personalities evolve as that draft is being created, all while the story unfolds. This is great, but this demands that after the draft is finished, the writer would serve their work best by taking an interim step between drafts and think about what happened.

Just as every story is a journey and a character should grow in the process, the author should go through the same metamorphosis. Once a draft is completed, the writer should take some time to contemplate what they learned about the characters through the act of creation, and whether they discovered something fascinating about them. After the first draft, take some time to think about that journey, and whether it feels genuine. If you don't understand the character's growth, you might be missing some important aspects of the story. After the second draft, you should know the character well enough to understand the journey and their changes, so now you need to think about anything that can really emphasize that transition. This is where sub-plots and so forth become important - they define aspects of the character's growth that the main arc does not imply.

After I finish a draft, I shelve it for a bit so I can really process what has happened. I think about those people I wrote about, and what I learned about them in the process of converting them from thoughts to words. At this point, it's perfectly acceptable to not write - you are preparing yourself for the next draft, and making it something special.

After that, get back to writing.