One of the things I taught my creative writing students was the importance of simply getting the story out. Get it out on the page, don’t think, don’t blink, don’t stop. It doesn’t matter that the grammar and the tenses and the spelling is wobbly. It doesn’t matter if you want to write your first draft in one long twenty-page paragraph or by hand or in crayon for that matter. What matters is getting the story out of your head and onto the page. It’s a first draft and no one needs to see it but you.
* First thing to do is to simply begin. You can begin anywhere. Begin with the scene you keep playing in your head or with the quirky piece of dialogue that you keep repeating to yourself. Begin where the greatest action or drama takes place. Experiment: begin in the middle, begin in the end. Begin.
* Chuck perfectionism out of the window along with the grammar and spelling and paragraphing. Give yourself permission to make mistakes, to play and to enjoy the process.
* Keep going. It doesn’t matter how absurd you may think some of what you have written sounds. You don’t have to get your entire trilogy, pre-qual and spin-off written down in one sitting. Create realistic and comfortable pockets of time in which you can put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
* Resist the urge to edit-as-you-go. This slows you down and links you back into the mindset that everything has to be absolutely perfect, no matter what, before you can continue. If a revision is absolutely necessary because you feel you need to change the direction of the plot or the character, do only the necessary section, then move on.
* When you’re done, put your manuscript away. Don’t touch it, don’t look at it. Resist. Author Stephen King, in his book On Writing, reveals that he places his finished manuscript in a drawer and doesn’t look at it for six weeks. His reasoning behind this is that a break from the completed work is essential for the redrafting process. Putting the manuscript away and out of mind allows the writer to return to the piece with fresh eyes and a little distance, which makes the redrafting process that much easier.
Create freedom around your work. A bird cannot soar the skies if it is trapped in a cage. Open the door and set yourself free.
3 comments:
Very nice post! Thanks :)
November was National Novel Writer's Month, and I took part in it again this year. My husband asked me why I tortured myself with the goal of writing fifty thousand words in one month. Why the pressure?
You've summed it up here. To begin. To learn to play. To quit editing on the fly. To get the story out.
The word verification fairies are conspiring to be interesting. Mine is "lingi" which seems like it would be related to words and writing.
i had never looked at writting this way. i always get overwhelmed with gramar and spelling and sentance structure... and thus ending every project i had ever started. this is a great method... i think i will try this out.
Post a Comment