Thoughts on First Drafts
One of the individuals who works at a Customline Wordware client company is doing an undergraduate degree right now, and this past week he interviewed me for one of his classes.
Here’s what he wrote: “I have a writing assignment for my Advanced Composition class where I need to ask several people about their approach to writing a first draft, then summarize my findings.”
While I think that summarizing such findings may be more of a challenge than amassing the interviews — for if anyone is idiosyncratic, it’s writers — it’s still interesting to see the focus on first drafts. So, for what it’s worth, I’ll share my answers to his questions here:
Approaches to writing a first draft
1. Do you do a great deal of planning before you begin a draft?
I do a great deal of *thinking*, which isn’t necessarily the same as planning. I find that I work best when I’m actually engaged with the material I’m writing, and that it’s then that I assess whether or not I need additional information, research, etc. The best writing advice I ever received was, “Keep your butt in the chair. Just write!” It serves me well.
2. Do you prefer to draft in one sitting or several sessions?
First draft is one sitting. Always: I just want to get the material *down,* see what it is that I have to work with, then go away from it and think about it and come back to it. But a first draft is always all at once (which explains why I’m often awake and working *far* past my bedtime!).
3. What do you do when you get stuck?
Pace. I’m an expert pacer. That’s when I need to follow the “keep your butt in the chair” advice, because it’s a good time to just walk away … and that *never* works.
But what really works best is trying to take a fresh look at the material. And what works best for *me* is imagining explaining it — and my dilemma — to another person. Usually I’m halfway through when I come unstuck — the solution to the problem that got me stuck in the first place is there when I take a step back and think about how I’d present it to someone else.
4. How do you feel when you are drafting?
It depends a lot on what it is I’m writing. If it’s something that’s been stewing in my head for a while, I feel exhilirated when I finally have the opportunity to get it down. If it’s an assignment (from a client, for example) I often feel anxious at first — Will I do it “right”? — though that usually goes away as I write; the act of writing is very empowering, very confidence-building.
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What about you? How do you approach a first draft? With trepidation? With confidence? Either approach (and everything between them) is perfectly acceptable; it’s knowing your own style that will put you … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Process Matters, About Writing, Creativity on September 22nd, 2007