Writing It Right--The First Time?
In just a few more weeks, RWA’s Golden Heart will be open for entries and I’ve been trying to decide which manuscript to commit. Entering this particular contest has been a personal goal of mine since I started writing fiction. At that time, I challenged myself to have a new book ready to send each year.
But this year, I’m not sure I’ll be finished with the WIP. Actually, even if I write ‘The End,’ the story won’t be polished enough to make the cut.
I have to smile when I admit that, because when I began writing, I couldn’t imagine finishing a book that wasn’t ready to go at ‘The End.’ Didn’t everyone revise and ‘fix’ as she went? I just couldn’t envision doing it any other way. Wasn’t it all supposed to be right the first time?
Why did I think so?
I worked at daily newspapers for more than a dozen years, writing several stories each issue. Reporters had to, as my husband liked to say, “Write it tight and make it sing”--and do it fast. Time to go back and revise and polish? Not on deadline.
But special feature stories demanded extra time, and I loved researching and interviewing and designing the content for those. The first version was never intended for publication. It was a rough draft that had to be perfected.
Later, when I taught feature writing, students were expected to produce rough drafts with the understanding that the story had to be developed, re-envisioned, edited, polished before it was finally ready to go.
Why, then, did that concept not make the transition to my fiction? But it didn’t. Not at first. I reverted to the daily-deadline-mentality. I felt I’d failed when I found areas that needed editing, revising, even eliminating.
Now I know better. I’m not so demanding of myself. I know it’s okay to do a first draft, then go back and add all those points I missed. To check wording, description, emotions--and, heaven forbid, plot holes. To layer.
Of course, there are those authors who, like daily reporters, get it right (almost always) the first time and under deadline. I’ve met a few of them--but they’re my friends, anyway. LOL.
As for me, now when I write ‘The End,” I know my work is only beginning. And this time it may not be finished for the Golden Heart.
Was it hard for you to learn to write forward, to not worry about perfecting each segment as you went? Or are you one of the lucky ones for whom that’s not an issue?
2 comments:
One of the best things I've done this year is accept a digital first contract. I've learned that just because I think my manuscript is polished and DONE, an editor sees things a little differently.
Now, I'm trying to incorporate those corrections into my first draft as I write. I'll see how successful I am...
I love writing fast, messy first drafts. I find it so freeing! I always go back and fix it up though ;)
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