It's All About the Final Product

When I worked in downtown Chicago, practically every day I had the privilege of passing by some part of Grant Park, just east of Michigan Avenue. Now, for those of you who don't know, Grant Park is this large stretch of property by Lake Michigan (technically by Monroe Harbor), stretching almost two miles north to south, replete with a bandshell, the Art Institute of Chicago, Buckingham Fountain, several monuments, and the Cloudgate sculpture, locally known as, "The Bean." Grant Park dates back to the 19th century (technically it got its name in 1901, but the park was there beforehand)  and has been as much a part of Chicago's identity as anything else. Underneath it is also one of the hubs of Chicago's commuter system, the trains a quiet little secret rumbling through the city. 

And this beautiful park is built atop a pile of trash.

Well, trash might be a rough word, but it's not wrong. Before 1871, Michigan Avenue ran right next to train lines then a lagoon that came in from Lake Michigan, so that was the boundary of the city. Then the Great Chicago Fire came along and changed everything. The area now known as the Loop was burned to the ground, and that entire stretch of the city had to be rebuilt. As a matter of convenience, all the wreckage from the city was just pushed across Michigan Avenue and into the lagoon, making it basically a huge gravesite for the former Chicago. This didn't help the lagoon much, so the rest was filled in as well, making it a lovely location for what became Grant Park. Under the surface - the wreckage from a terrible  tragedy. On top - a place for a picnic.

Now that I've offered this lengthy history lesson, let me follow up with this - I wasn't writing this to elaborate about Chicago's history. This is in fact about writing, and all the dirt and carnage lying beneath the polished text of the final product. Read your favorite book and you will be dragged in by the characters, the plot, the intrigue and tension - all the good stuff we enjoy with a good story. And chances are, you will not see any traces of the first draft anywhere. All those early ideas - the characters that got edited out later, the plot arcs that went nowhere, the distracting descriptions and wild plot tangents - get buried under like so much trash in the landfill. We, as writers, are allowed to do that; it's mandatory. It allows us to be imperfect, knowing that those past disasters can just be buried under, never to be seen again.

To go back to the Chicago metaphor, give yourself the option of burning a work to the very foundation and dumping the remnants into the lagoon - so to speak. Save the things that work - like the Chicago Water Tower, which survived being right in the middle of the Great Chicago Fire - and cover the rest with new words and ideas. You will know the dark little secret of all the wreckage lying beneath your final product, but nobody has to see it as long as you cover it up. Atop piles and piles of grammatical rubble, you will have your Grant Park.