Ian Dawson's Blog - Posts Tagged "drafting-process"
Writing Tip of the Week: Those Early Drafts – For Your Eyes Only
While it may be the title of a James Bond film from the Roger Moore era, ensuring you are the only person who sees your first couple of drafts is essential to the writing process. This is the time in a story’s life cycle when ideas, plot threads, characters, and dialogue are still in their developmental stages, which means they will evolve and change over time to be better than they are at the start.
For this reason, keeping these early incarnations of your work under wraps can help ensure you keep writing and finish the draft so you can begin the editing process.
What a Mess!
When working on a draft, I do my best to keep moving forward and not go back to make any changes. If I have ideas for changes I’d like to make to chapters, sequences, or dialogue, I’ll make a note of it and keep moving my way to the end of the draft.
This means that there will inevitably be plot holes, lackluster dialogue, weak description, and other horribly written elements. But here’s the big thing to remember even if what you’ve written is garbage: it’s written.
Now you can take that mess of a draft, start for Chapter One, and begin making it better. This is why keeping these early drafts to yourself is critical; prying eyes also have unwanted opinions, and those are best left silenced during this phase of any writing project.
Organized Chaos
As you edit, revise, and improve your story, you’ll notice where elements work and where things that sounded good in your outline no longer make any sense entirely written out. You’ll have to make changes and alter story beats to make things flow, but that’s all part of the process.
At this point, your manuscript is in a state of organized chaos since you now have a completed draft of your story, but it still has a way to go until it’s ready for another reader’s eyes and opinions. You now have a literal work-in-progress that now has the potential to become even better than you initially planned since everything is out of your head and in front of you to fix and polish.
When Should Others Get Involved?
Once you come to a point in the writing process where everything has come together and the story and all its elements flow for you as you read through, it may be time to let another person have a look and offer their insights. You may have minor tweaks or polishes that still need to be done, but having this second set of eyes can now help you see things that may be missing or need improvement.
Make sure this person has an opinion you trust and value, someone who will provide constructive criticism and help improve the work. Even at this phase, you may feel the project isn’t 100% ready, but having this new viewpoint will help you continue the process to make it the best it can be.
Final Thoughts
The early drafting phases can be chaotic, so it’s crucial to keep these versions to yourself until you’ve revised to the point that a trusted reader can be looped in to provide feedback that will strengthen what you’ve produced.
Your manuscript should remain a classified document until you’re ready to disclose its contents to anyone other than yourself.
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
For this reason, keeping these early incarnations of your work under wraps can help ensure you keep writing and finish the draft so you can begin the editing process.
What a Mess!
When working on a draft, I do my best to keep moving forward and not go back to make any changes. If I have ideas for changes I’d like to make to chapters, sequences, or dialogue, I’ll make a note of it and keep moving my way to the end of the draft.
This means that there will inevitably be plot holes, lackluster dialogue, weak description, and other horribly written elements. But here’s the big thing to remember even if what you’ve written is garbage: it’s written.
Now you can take that mess of a draft, start for Chapter One, and begin making it better. This is why keeping these early drafts to yourself is critical; prying eyes also have unwanted opinions, and those are best left silenced during this phase of any writing project.
Organized Chaos
As you edit, revise, and improve your story, you’ll notice where elements work and where things that sounded good in your outline no longer make any sense entirely written out. You’ll have to make changes and alter story beats to make things flow, but that’s all part of the process.
At this point, your manuscript is in a state of organized chaos since you now have a completed draft of your story, but it still has a way to go until it’s ready for another reader’s eyes and opinions. You now have a literal work-in-progress that now has the potential to become even better than you initially planned since everything is out of your head and in front of you to fix and polish.
When Should Others Get Involved?
Once you come to a point in the writing process where everything has come together and the story and all its elements flow for you as you read through, it may be time to let another person have a look and offer their insights. You may have minor tweaks or polishes that still need to be done, but having this second set of eyes can now help you see things that may be missing or need improvement.
Make sure this person has an opinion you trust and value, someone who will provide constructive criticism and help improve the work. Even at this phase, you may feel the project isn’t 100% ready, but having this new viewpoint will help you continue the process to make it the best it can be.
Final Thoughts
The early drafting phases can be chaotic, so it’s crucial to keep these versions to yourself until you’ve revised to the point that a trusted reader can be looped in to provide feedback that will strengthen what you’ve produced.
Your manuscript should remain a classified document until you’re ready to disclose its contents to anyone other than yourself.
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
Writing Tip of the Week: Write Badly with Pride
As media consumers, we are presented with the best possible versions of products sold in stores, online, and in movie theaters. This “final product” can lead some to believe that what they’re seeing was indeed lightning in a bottle, that the project from idea to distribution was a seamless process for all involved.
And that would be 100% incorrect.
Screenplays, TV scripts, novels, short films, poetry, and all other forms of written media never start as the final version. Everyone starts from the same place: nothing. The key is to craft nothing into something that can become a final product, but you can’t do that if you haven’t written anything.
This is where writing badly with pride comes into play.
Why Write Badly?
First, you must accept that whatever you initially put down on the page will not be your best work. It just won’t be, and that’s okay. It’s essential to have it down on the page so it can be reworked, tweaked, and edited later to make it the best it can be.
When I write drafts, the first iteration of anything written is garbage. But, since the basic idea is out of my head and there’s a visual representation on my computer or paper, my mind can now work on the chapter or scene and improve it.
Even if you’re tempted to go back and change things, force yourself to keep moving forward in this poorly written draft and work to get to the end. The last thing you want to do is get into a cycle of write-rewrite-edit-rewrite-rework-rewrite-tweak, only to be on page ten six months later.
Once you have a draft that’s 10% good, your eventual goal is to work on it and help it evolve into the 100% version you’ve brainstormed and dreamed about. But if you overthink and aim for perfection from page one of your rough draft, getting to that final page and The End will be a challenge.
Why Write Badly with Pride?
You’re a writer. Writers write. Whether it’s good, bad, or mediocre, taking pride in your work and having the confidence to get it out on the page by any means necessary should be your top priority. This means no matter how poor the rough draft’s quality is, you should be confident enough in yourself as a writer to know that you will make it better over time.
It’s what all writers have to do. It’s part of the job.
Yes, even a screenplay that wins an Academy Award or a novel that becomes a New York Times bestseller had to be thrown out onto the page in some haphazard form before getting to its final form.
A Cure for Writer’s Block?
Writing badly with pride is an excellent way to destroy writer’s block from its foundation. There’s no fear of writing something that isn’t great since that’s no longer the point! Your goal is to write anything in any form so you can fix it later.
It shouldn’t be like building a house where getting it right the first time is ideal. With writing, you can always go back and revise, which means getting the ideas out on the page in whatever form is a great way to go from garbage to gold.
Final Thoughts
My screenwriting professor, Eric Edson, wrote “Write Badly with Pride” on the whiteboard on the first day of his class, and I’ve never forgotten it. It should be the motto of all writers, whether they are starting out or are pros. I encourage everyone to type the motto in big, bold letters, print it out, and hang it above their writing space.
Write Badly with Pride, and I’ll see you next time!
And that would be 100% incorrect.
Screenplays, TV scripts, novels, short films, poetry, and all other forms of written media never start as the final version. Everyone starts from the same place: nothing. The key is to craft nothing into something that can become a final product, but you can’t do that if you haven’t written anything.
This is where writing badly with pride comes into play.
Why Write Badly?
First, you must accept that whatever you initially put down on the page will not be your best work. It just won’t be, and that’s okay. It’s essential to have it down on the page so it can be reworked, tweaked, and edited later to make it the best it can be.
When I write drafts, the first iteration of anything written is garbage. But, since the basic idea is out of my head and there’s a visual representation on my computer or paper, my mind can now work on the chapter or scene and improve it.
Even if you’re tempted to go back and change things, force yourself to keep moving forward in this poorly written draft and work to get to the end. The last thing you want to do is get into a cycle of write-rewrite-edit-rewrite-rework-rewrite-tweak, only to be on page ten six months later.
Once you have a draft that’s 10% good, your eventual goal is to work on it and help it evolve into the 100% version you’ve brainstormed and dreamed about. But if you overthink and aim for perfection from page one of your rough draft, getting to that final page and The End will be a challenge.
Why Write Badly with Pride?
You’re a writer. Writers write. Whether it’s good, bad, or mediocre, taking pride in your work and having the confidence to get it out on the page by any means necessary should be your top priority. This means no matter how poor the rough draft’s quality is, you should be confident enough in yourself as a writer to know that you will make it better over time.
It’s what all writers have to do. It’s part of the job.
Yes, even a screenplay that wins an Academy Award or a novel that becomes a New York Times bestseller had to be thrown out onto the page in some haphazard form before getting to its final form.
A Cure for Writer’s Block?
Writing badly with pride is an excellent way to destroy writer’s block from its foundation. There’s no fear of writing something that isn’t great since that’s no longer the point! Your goal is to write anything in any form so you can fix it later.
It shouldn’t be like building a house where getting it right the first time is ideal. With writing, you can always go back and revise, which means getting the ideas out on the page in whatever form is a great way to go from garbage to gold.
Final Thoughts
My screenwriting professor, Eric Edson, wrote “Write Badly with Pride” on the whiteboard on the first day of his class, and I’ve never forgotten it. It should be the motto of all writers, whether they are starting out or are pros. I encourage everyone to type the motto in big, bold letters, print it out, and hang it above their writing space.
Write Badly with Pride, and I’ll see you next time!
Writing Tip of the Week: Write Experimentally with Pride
As I wrote about in a post last week, your initial drafts should be for your eyes only. That means that you should have the freedom to write your story how you want, in whatever way you want, with all the profanity, sex, violence, and other crazy stuff you want.
In these uncensored moments, you allow your creativity to stretch to its limits, experiment, and let elements of your story go off the rails in ways you would never imagine releasing into the world.
Go a Little Crazy
Fiction allows you to experiment and play around with the world and the characters that inhabit that world. If you are stuck on an idea or are unsure what direction to take a character’s choices, take the crazy train and see what happens. You may like or hate what you write, but at least you’re taking the time to explore options you normally wouldn’t have tried.
This is also a fun way to escape cliches and tropes that can bog down a story. Sometimes, you must break through a genre’s constraints to find something fresh for readers to experience. By taking the guardrails off and jumping into the abyss of insanity, you may find the story solution you’re looking for.
Have Some Fun
If you usually write in a specific genre and have been curious about exploring others, this is an excellent opportunity to experiment and see what you can do. You can even see what boundaries you can explore within a genre you’re comfortable with. Are there aspects you’ve been afraid to incorporate into your work?
Remember, this phase of the writing journey is classified and never to be seen by anyone else. If you write stuff that’s too out there, too nuts, or even too awful, it’s okay. This is merely an exploratory mission. If it doesn’t work, at least you tried.
Keep It or Cut It?
Ultimately, you will release a draft of your work to a few people for feedback. If you discovered some intriguing things while writing uncensored that you want to keep in your manuscript to see how they are received, go for it. These elements should still be part of your story and not shock value for the sake of shock value. Based on the feedback, you can make the call to keep it or cut it out.
(Obviously, if you write stories meant to shock and offend, do what you gotta do!)
You also have to consider if these uncensored scenes or chapters fit your genre’s parameters. A cozy mystery probably wouldn’t have a bloody massacre described in detail. Likewise, a middle-grade novel probably shouldn’t have overt violence, sex, or profanity.
If you choose traditional publishing, you will face more restrictions than self-publishing, but you should still be mindful of the genres and age groups you are writing for.
Final Thoughts
I advocate initially experimenting with your writing and writing uncensored drafts, then pulling things back and cutting where necessary. You shouldn’t place unneeded restrictions on yourself in the drafting phase that could hinder creativity and the flow of your writing in the early stages. Get it out there, see what works, and cut the rest.
Write Experimentally with Pride, and I’ll see you next time!
In these uncensored moments, you allow your creativity to stretch to its limits, experiment, and let elements of your story go off the rails in ways you would never imagine releasing into the world.
Go a Little Crazy
Fiction allows you to experiment and play around with the world and the characters that inhabit that world. If you are stuck on an idea or are unsure what direction to take a character’s choices, take the crazy train and see what happens. You may like or hate what you write, but at least you’re taking the time to explore options you normally wouldn’t have tried.
This is also a fun way to escape cliches and tropes that can bog down a story. Sometimes, you must break through a genre’s constraints to find something fresh for readers to experience. By taking the guardrails off and jumping into the abyss of insanity, you may find the story solution you’re looking for.
Have Some Fun
If you usually write in a specific genre and have been curious about exploring others, this is an excellent opportunity to experiment and see what you can do. You can even see what boundaries you can explore within a genre you’re comfortable with. Are there aspects you’ve been afraid to incorporate into your work?
Remember, this phase of the writing journey is classified and never to be seen by anyone else. If you write stuff that’s too out there, too nuts, or even too awful, it’s okay. This is merely an exploratory mission. If it doesn’t work, at least you tried.
Keep It or Cut It?
Ultimately, you will release a draft of your work to a few people for feedback. If you discovered some intriguing things while writing uncensored that you want to keep in your manuscript to see how they are received, go for it. These elements should still be part of your story and not shock value for the sake of shock value. Based on the feedback, you can make the call to keep it or cut it out.
(Obviously, if you write stories meant to shock and offend, do what you gotta do!)
You also have to consider if these uncensored scenes or chapters fit your genre’s parameters. A cozy mystery probably wouldn’t have a bloody massacre described in detail. Likewise, a middle-grade novel probably shouldn’t have overt violence, sex, or profanity.
If you choose traditional publishing, you will face more restrictions than self-publishing, but you should still be mindful of the genres and age groups you are writing for.
Final Thoughts
I advocate initially experimenting with your writing and writing uncensored drafts, then pulling things back and cutting where necessary. You shouldn’t place unneeded restrictions on yourself in the drafting phase that could hinder creativity and the flow of your writing in the early stages. Get it out there, see what works, and cut the rest.
Write Experimentally with Pride, and I’ll see you next time!
