First Drafts: Struggle & Process

Things have been fairly quiet on my blog of late because I spent the month of November working on a new short story. I completed what I think is a solid draft of the latest WIP, and so as I switch gears and dive into revisions, I wanted to talk a little bit about how I got there.

Something I realized with the last two stories is that I kind of hate writing first drafts.

This realization came as a bit of a surprise to me, as first drafts are supposed to be the free-wheeling, no-holds barred, it-can’t-suck, awesomest part of writing. Sure, when the ideas are blasting through your fingers and slamming into the keyboard, it can feel great. But for me, especially on the last two stories I’ve written, the first draft process was a mighty struggle, with much gnashing of teeth and grinding of brain.

Coincidentally, these new stories also fall under the banner of “written right after Clarion West,” and as wonderful as that experience was, it has a rep for sometimes scrambling the creative process for a little while afterwards. However, far from laying any blame on post-workshop exhaustion, I actually credit what I learned there for helping me get through this latest grind-fest.

Before, I’d always considered myself a bit of a straight-ahead writer. I’d think of some cool characters or a setting or a plot and start at the beginning and figure stuff out as I wrote. It’s a heck of an adventure, but there’s a danger of developing tunnel vision. You can’t really afford that when you only have a week to write a story!

So I changed the way I work.

I’ve always been a visual person, and my work in the film industry has taught me to think in scenes, in storyboards, and even doodles. Many films are planned out this way long before the first word of a screenplay is written.

So I’ve embraced the visual in my process, starting by doing a lot of scene sketches, auditioning locations, characters, and even dialogue. It’s like doodling little thumbnail sketches in advance of painting a canvas. Sometimes I write stuff in order, sometimes I don’t. I shuffle broad swathes of narrative until I start to feel oriented. I end up abandoning a lot of concepts–but somehow, the story begins to take shape from all these bits and pieces.

It can be frustrating to hop around, sometimes it even feels like I’m wasting time. But this back-and-forthing actually gives me permission to spin my wheels, even to fail occasionally. And I’m beginning to trust the new process even if I’m not entirely patient with it yet.

Though it might seem obvious to work this way (and I’m sure many writers do), it somehow never sunk in that it might also work for me, despite my years doing it in my day job. Without this loose but structured process, I’m not sure I would have managed to finish these first drafts.

If you’re struggling, then maybe you should take a second look at your process, too.