There are
plenty of generalizations about the writing process, and some of them are even
true. Today I’d like to talk about one that’s often presented as being
absolutely true, even though it’s only mostly true.
It’s been
expressed in various ways, but the thrust of it is, “The first draft of a book
is always terrible.”
Substitute
“usually” or “often” for “always” in that sentence, and I wouldn’t argue too
much. From almost everything I’ve written and heard, I’ve concluded that most
authors, particularly fiction authors, discover their book in the process of
writing it. When the first draft is completed, they’re left with something that
ended up being a lot different than what they started out to do.
Get me
rewrite!
There are,
however, and always have been authors who know what they want to do and pretty
much nail it on the first try. In such cases there’s always some cleanup and
tightening to be done, but it’s hardly a major overhaul.
The Speedy Genre Writer
I’ve read —
though so long ago I’ve forgotten where — that Dickens and Shakespeare wrote
quickly, channeling the muse before she escaped. When Dickens, at the urging of
Bulwer-Lytton, rewrote the end of Great
Expectations, he was simply adjusting what he already had, not reimagining
it anew.
A certain
number of genre writers, working within an established format, are able to
figure out the book beforehand and come up with a first draft that works, with
a few changes. I have recent evidence of this. Over the weekend I read Rex
Stout’s Nero Wolfe mystery The Second Confession,
written in 1949. And I do mean all
written in 1949.
According
to a note at the end of my edition, Stout began writing the book (some 240
pages long) on March 16, 1949 and completed it April 23. It was then submitted
to the publisher and after typesetting, final editing and legal review, it was
published September 6.
That’s five
and a half months from first keystroke to book off the presses. And he did it
with typewriters. And 65 years later, it’s better written than many current
best-sellers.
Doing the Thinking First
It takes me
a year to get one of my mystery novels written, but it isn’t the writing and
revisions that take up most of the time. A lot of that time involves prep work
and outlining. I’m one of those writers who needs to know where the story is
going and how it’s getting there before I actually start writing it.
Since I’m
not writing mystery novels for a living, and since I have a day job, and since
I have a life outside writing, my books get written when I can get to them,
which is often in fits and starts. Some weeks I can work on the book nearly
every day. At other times, it goes a week or two (in one instance a month or
two) without any attention.
But because
I’ve imagined the book in considerable detail before writing it, what finally
gets into print (or e-book) is essentially an amended and improved version of
the first draft. I’m not saying that’s the way any other author ought to do it,
but it works for me and it’s worked for other writers who have been deemed good.
I won’t tell you how to write your book if you promise not to tell me that my
first draft can’t possibly be any good.
