Throw It Out; Write It Again

One of the worst things a young writer can think is that they write a story once.  They're supposed to sit down, crank out the story in one sitting, and then it's done.  Sure, they may edit as they write, but once you're at the end, it's The End.  Accompanying the problem is thinking that you are writing the final draft and that any prep work is a waste of time and energy (after all, we always end up making up our stuff as we go along).  I know this is terrible because I did it myself.

Fortunately, I have since come to my senses and realized that writing without preparing is garbage.  If it is the first time you wrote something, it is a first draft by definition.  And if you've done no preparing, then you only really have a rough idea of what you are trying to do, making it a rough draft, too.  At this point, I write a given story over and over again.  Each time I finish a draft, I throw it out and write the next one.

The prep work I do is usually taking a sheet of paper and writing down as many thoughts as I have that are inspiring the story,  The first version of a story is an outline.  It is the organizing of my thoughts into a linear progression.  This outline also covers the key points of the story.  It is the skeleton.

Now that I know the absolute basics, I throw out the outline and write an overview.  As I've said before, an overview is halfway between an outline and a first draft.  This is where I start discovering more of the characters involved and who they are.  I discover their preferences, mannerisms, goals, motives, and all that other stuff.  I also figure out the nuances of the plot.  I may know that I have Point A and Point B, but here is where I figure out what happens to get people from A to B.

After an overview, I write my first draft.  At this point, I pretty much know the entirety of the story.  What I don't know are all the excruciating details.  I haven't written out the conversations verbatim.  I haven't drawn diagrams of buildings or decided what furniture and other accoutrement are there to see and interact with.  The first draft is where I am writing the story as a story (instead of mere ideas about a story).  I am also practicing my pacing and tone here.

When I finish a first draft, I know my story.  I've already written it and played with it, so now I want to make it beautiful.  My first draft usually has so many things that I want to change that it becomes easier to just do a complete overhaul.  This is where the second draft comes in.  Once again, I throw out my old version and do it again.  The nice thing about the second version is that there will be a stronger continuity to it.  Though a long story probably won't be drafted in one sitting, it will sound more like a cohesive unit than if I had torn out chunks of my first draft and filled them with rewritten material.

With the second draft done, there comes leeway.  Ideally, this draft will be so solid that it doesn't need to be thrown out.  However, I could write another draft if I decide that enough needs to be changed.  Depending on the specifics of the piece of writing, I will draft until I am happy enough with it that I move on to editing.

The editing process is where I finally stop throwing out what I have.  It is where only minor tweaks need to be made, often cosmetic ones for clearer and easier reading.  With those done, I will have a final draft.  Huzzah!

The reason I wrote this out is to illustrate how much writing goes into a piece of writing.  Every step has a purpose.  Every step is crucial.  None of them can be avoided and nobody can do all of those things in one draft, let alone one sitting.  Now, like I said, I used to be that petulant youth.  So I also know that there is no way to convince them that they're wrong.  People like that need to experience these failures and realizations for themselves.  However, it is important to make them aware of these things.  I had teachers who told me I was being stupid by trying to do everything in one draft.  I rejected them, but I also had the seeds of realization planted.  When everything I wrote was lousy, I realized that my teachers were right.  If not for them, I would have thought I just wasn't that good (or worse, not have realized that what I was doing was lousy).

You may not want to literally throw out your writing.  That's fine.  Save your drafts.  Sometimes they're good for nostalgia.  On occasion, they're good for reference.  Just make sure you don't have it side-by-side with the current draft you are writing.  There will be too much temptation to directly copy, which defeats the purpose of writing new drafts.