It's pretty self explanatory. You said ""Just write" generally means quit talking about writing and do it. It doesn't have to mean writing garbage to clean up later. " I then explained the merits of this method, because, in my opinion, you made it look bad. You argued, then I argued. Then you said, something along the lines of "people need to stop telling others how to write!"
Wow. If you think that's making something "look bad', you're going to have one hell of a time with editors.
This makes no sense. You argued your method. I argued mine. I'm not sure what you're getting bent out of shape about.
From an outside perspective, I definitely got the impression that shadowwalker was presenting options and trying to keep things balanced. S/he mentioned several times that there were lots of different approaches and whatever works, works. 123..., your posts gave me the impression that you were presenting what you thought was the 'best' way to do things, rather than just a different way.
"I prefer to build a strong foundation from the get-go, rather than go back and patch it when I see the house tilting. Different strokes for different folks." This sort of statement incorrectly presents the "write a quick first draft" method. I simply corrected it.
Perhaps it's not how you wanted to come off, but I took your language as critical of the "just write, get the first draft done" technique. Calling my first draft (or anyone's who uses this technique) "garbage", I suppose, is sharp language. Is it good writing? No, it's terrible. But then again...it's not done yet, I feel like I've barely begun. It's like calling the Mona Lisa garbage when it's only a quarter way done (Not claiming I'm writing a best-seller or anything, just an example) Since this is my first novel, getting the first draft written and done is very important to me. In my next novel I may try your technique. Maybe you should try mine. Like the others said, you may not exactly know what works for you yet. I do know, however, that it's 100% accurate that I didn't fully KNOW my story until just now...and I'm about 10,000 words from finishing. Characters changed, bad guys weren't so bad...hell I even killed a character I originally figured would live. The story changed before my eyes in ways I never anticipated.
In @shadowwalker's defense, I was (I think) the first one here to use the word "garbage" for a first draft, but I was referring to mine, if I wrote the way some are telling me to write. Nobody said your first draft was garbage. I like to write as well as I can every time I sit down to write. No excuses. So I revise as I go, trying to make sure that my first draft is good. When I'm done, and I'm looking at a pile of manuscript pages, I want to smile in satisfaction as I read them, not sigh and say, "this whole damn thing needs a rewrite from page one." I mean, because I'm a pantser and the story changes as I write the first draft, it will need revisions, but not because the prose sucked the first time through. The prose style will be as good as I can make it every time through.
I said: "It doesn't have to mean writing garbage to clean up later. " You yourself stated: "Is it good writing? No, it's terrible." I'm saying it doesn't have to be. How is that critical or demeaning or insulting to anyone or their writing? Good grief, people!
Yep. I said it doesn't have to be garbage, and described what works for me. I never said any method was garbage, and never told anyone their first draft was garbage.
If it didn't help produce the results I want, it wouldn't work for me, and thus I wouldn't like it. Why would someone use a method they didn't like?
I think as would be writers we need to be very careful about how we appraise our results, considering it's hard to be objective with one's own work. For the record, I have altered my way of writing on more than one occasion from other people's advice, and will likely do so again. While I think Bayview is ultimately right, each work will/can require it's own method, and as an ever growing writer, you'll want to explore , but "works for me " doesn't really tell anyone anything. All we can do is point out the pros cons we think we see and let others decide.
I don't know, I do have a lot of constraints, but I don't feel they match what op wrote in his post. Probably not the same type either. So...let's see, I think it is mostly demotivation and stuff like that. I always convince myself that the writing is shit, even though I know it is only a first draft, and that demotivates me and buggers me till I'm done writing. For example I lose hope when I read through a chapter and find out it's a wreck (this happens a lot when I "just write") When I get stuck in a chapter, unable to find words, I often just call it a day and then I struggle getting back to it... I want to get better at writing, but it's not something you can learn the same way as you learn how to drive a car for example, it takes so much, and even though I keep trying I feel like I'm only failing. (Yes I keep reading and writing regardless, but if I knew that I had some sort of skill I would probably write more) I have this horrible itching when I'm bad at something that I want to be good at. Ugh...I think I derailed my post slightly, Now that I think about it I sometimes write things characters shouldn't know or like they are paying attention to everything, a problem I'm working on and usually edit out when I read the chapter.
As far as getting style on draft 1, I personally, expect to have sections that exemplify the intended tone, voice, mood, of the work. These serve as anchors for following drafts. I believe that writing should look natural and fee, and that if you spend too long on any one part, you begin to dig a hole for yourself, and the writing comes out forced. I prefer guerrilla tactics. Light touches till all the sh** is chiseled away. This happens over multiple drafts. But if the first draft isn't indicative at all of your peices voice, tone, I would say it's an incomplete first draft.
I wasn't really accusing, just saying be careful with language. Everyone around here thinks of their works as their children. It's overly sensitive, I know, but common...would you agree? Regardless, you didn't offend me or anything. I know what you're trying to say. I'm told Mozart didn't make any changes to the music he wrote. I'm told some authors can complete a polished novel on the first draft. But I'm not them, nor are most authors. I also have been told many successful authors out there write a shit-ton (technical term) of drafts. I read a quote online from a famous author (don't remember who) who advised new authors to "write really shitty first drafts."
I mostly tend to try and pay attention to style in my first draft. I try to write most sections as well as I can at the time. The NaNoWriMo method of just powering it out as quickly as possible doesn't appeal. Saying that if I'm really struggling to write a part well, then I'll leave it at whatever poor attempt I've managed and move on. There's no point in getting blocked when I can always come back and fix it in a subsequent draft. I certainly haven't manage to write my novel in one draft. (And I'm a little jealous of any pantser who could do that) I've got subplots that fizzled out because the story moved on without them being resolved. I've got characters which I introduced and then didn't do a lot with. Sometimes I've forgotten stuff I've written earlier, which has lead to some silly inconsistencies. By the second half of the draft I was making a to do list of things I needed to change earlier on to make later stuff work. Not to mention I got better at writing over the course of the draft. (Which I think at least partially comes down to paying attention to style in the first place) It's all fixable at least. By the way according to the definitions given in the original post, I'm somewhere between pantser and a planner. I've got a 40 bullet point plan of my novel. But beyond that I wrote my novel by writing complete scenes one after the other and the story didn't end up going via every single bullet point. So I've answered the original question, but I might not be the sort of person it was targeted at.
I've published two novels, and I still haven't found a method that works every time. Different ms's seem to demand different ways of writing. With the first, I wrote the scenes non-cronologically, then put everything together the way I wanted it. The second time I had two POV characters and wrote the entire story, first from the mc's pov and then from the secondary caracter's. I had a lot less revision to do the second time around, (that might also depend on what I learned the first time). Now I'm planning a novel (that's one thing that never changes, I do plan) and realize there are so many subplots I probably need to write the main story first and then each subplot strand at a time in order to not leave anything out. I have also decided weeks ago to take the time to write the first draft as close to "perfect" as possible instead of "just writing" like I used to do before = different novels, different ways of writing that works best, at least for me. And I kind of like that, it makes it more exciting to see how it's going to work out.
A lot of people quote Hemingway as having said "The first draft is always shit." - but his grandson, who is cataloging (and I believe publishing) many of those drafts swears they are very clean. I would never advise someone to deliberately write crappy first drafts, but if writing "off the cuff" without worrying about details or even grammar is what gets the book eventually completed with some degree of quality, I'm not going to tell them to stop doing that.
I was thumbing through a completed piece of work last night, I started it 6 years ago, it took me two years to write the first draft and it's just been sat gather dust ever since, I like it but I don't love it, I find myself pondering the age old question. To rewrite or to the shredder? Do I just cast it off as a failure or if first I do not succeed do I try and try again?
In this day and age, you could just keep the file on your computer and come back to it if you ever feel so inclined. There's no need to literally shred anything. I'd never literally shred anything, even what I know is crap, because even that crap is my crap. It's crap I've loved and laboured over. The world doesn't have to know it, see it, like it - I couldn't give a damn. I know it's crap. But it's mine and it's evidence of how far along I've come. Evidence of my hard work. Evidence of my own evolution as a writer. Evidence of a labour of love and months or years of enjoyment. What would it hurt to leave it sitting on a shelf or on your hard drive? Nothing. It wouldn't matter. But what would it hurt to shred it, delete it from this world and have nothing to come back to? Quite a bit. For me, anyway. Even if I pull out that crap just to laugh at it - and I have done that, even shown it to my friends in order to laugh at it and show them how crap I used to be. Even if that was the only purpose, I'd still keep it. It's hilarious to see how bad it was, but there's something also uplifting about it. About seeing your old self write what she thought was excellent. About seeing what she used to think like. Seeing evidence of a younger self whom you might have forgotten. So, if you want to, rewrite it. If right now you don't wanna, leave it alone and work on something else. If the time ever comes that you do wanna work on it again, the draft is right there for you to pick up. If that time never comes, well, so what? It'll be one more gem of a memory you can indulge whenever you wish, and maybe smile a little at your past naivety and celebrate how much better you are now compared to then.
Save it for reference and the lols when you read it again years down the line. It might even inspire something.
