In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* The First Draft Is the Final Draft
* Of Interest
Quote of the Day
“If you’re going to make a living from this gig, you need to train yourself to be prolific. This takes discipline. You also need to train your brain to write well the first time around. It doesn’t have to be perfect. But you can edit as you go.” Vin Zandri (See the rest in Of Interest)
The First Draft Is the Final Draft
So says bestselling authors Vin Zandri and Dean Wesley Smith and countless others.
And so say I. Everybody who’s been around TNDJ for any length of time knows this is pretty much my mantra.
Vin ends the quote above with “you can edit as you go.” True’dat. Just remember to stay in the creative subconscious while you’re “editing” in that way (I call it “cycling”).
Did you add enough depth to the segment you just wrote, or is the writing (and the scene) “thin”?
Usually what you miss are aspects of the character or aspects of the setting that the POV character noticed but that you failed to add the first time through. Or sometimes some aspects of the scene in the mental movie in your head didn’t make it onto the page.
Usually what you miss are aspects of the character or aspects of the setting that the POV character noticed but that you failed to add the first time through.
Can the reader see, hear, and smell the setting? Can he see the character and sense the character’s mood?
Unless you’ve practiced putting all five physical senses into every major scene, you might have missed one or more of those aspects. But that’s all right. That’s what cycling is for.
The only thing I have against actual “editing” is that it’s a function of the conscious, critical mind. Anytime you allow your critical mind into your fiction, you’re entering a danger zone. So be careful on that.
In the paragraph above, I almost wrote “Anytime you allow your critical mind to PLAY in your fiction.” But that’s just dumb.
The creative subconscious, like a carefree four-year old child, certainly plays.
But the critical mind never plays. The critical mind is your straitlaced, strict inner English teacher. It only corrects. And more often that not, it wants to correct things that don’t need to be corrected.
If you aren’t sure how to tell the difference between the creative subconscious and the conscious, critical mind, maybe this will help:
- When you’re reading a novel or short story and you feel like you’re down in the story with the characters, you’re in the creative subconscious mind.
- When you sit down and start writing your own fiction and you glance up at the clock only a few minutes later to find that an hour has passed, you’re in the creative subconscious mind.
- But when you’re teetering on the edge of boredom and grinding your way through the scene or story one agonizing word at a time while you’re either writing or editing, that’s the conscious, critical mind.
And just so you know, both of the creative subconscious and the conscious, critical mind has a “little voice” you might hear when something doesn’t feel quite right as as you’re writing or editing. But there’s a difference there too.
- The creative subconscious voice is always encouraging, always positive, and always pushing you (and the story) to greater heights. That’s why it’s fun, exhilarating, and maybe even a little scary.
- The critical mind is always… well, critical. And it’s always negative. When you hear “can’t” or “shouldn’t” or “Is this even worthwhile?” or other stuff like that from that little voice in your head, it’s the critical mind speaking.
The only time the creative subconscious even borders on the negative is when it sends that little feeling of almost-nausea into your gut while you’re editing with the critical mind. It’s an uneasy sense that you’re changing the story too much, tweaking something that doesn’t need to be tweaked. Listen to it.
If you insist on doing a critical-mind edit, it’s a good idea to hit Save As first and save the file with a different name before you do that. Just add a 2 or something to the file name. Then you can give your critical mind its head for a few minutes, but you’ll still have the original story when you regain your senses.
In every case, the critical mind is either trying to make you stop writing or it’s trying to tell you that you know the story better than the characters do. And of course, that’s impossible since the characters are actually living the story, whereas you’re only observing and recording it for posterity as an outsider.
So ignore the critical voice, shove it aside, take a deep breath, and just write the next sentence. And just to be clear, the next sentence should be whatever pops into your head.
Happy writing! Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
The First Draft is the Final Draft Vin’s take on the above topic.
John Grisham on why he still writes anyway even with the decline in reading over the past 20 years.
Introducing: New in Kindle Unlimited Note: I recommend strongly AGAINST going exclusive with Kindle Unlimited. But to be fair to those of you who like KU for whatever weird reason or who are considering going with KU, I’m listing this link.