Yesterday was a long day. After getting up at 4:30, walking the dog, and writing yesterday's blog, I started the novel and got through the Prologue, all 71 words of it. It started out as about 200 words before I cut it down and tightened it up. I'm trying to get in the habit of writing well, even in the first draft. Yes, this seems counter to what I wrote about yesterday, but it's not. Not entirely.
I wrote badly at first. I tried to find a good opening line, got something down that was okay, and finished the first paragraph. Then, while thinking about what came next, I cycled back and read it over. I noticed a couple of quick fixes, removed an unnecessary word or three, and rearranged a few things. Satisfied, I now knew what the second paragraph should be. I wrote that, and then cycled back through the whole to see how it flowed. A few more fixes were made, on the fly editing, and after writing the third, short paragraph, I did it all again.
In the end, I was left with seventy-one words that accomplish, more or less, what I wanted from the prologue. There's still a metaphor in the first line that I'm not sure I'm happy with, but for now it will stand.
But Joe, that's not a first draft!
Sure it is. I sat down, put my fingers to the keyboard, and wrote it. I didn't type it straight through on the first fly by, but that doesn't mean it escapes first draft status.
It means that, for the first time ever, I sat down to write fiction with intent, with an awareness of what I wanted to accomplish and what I wanted the reader to feel. I paid attention to craft, word choice, and tried to get it as close to right the first time out as I could.
It's still a first draft. I will probably change some or all of it later, after writing more of the story. That will show me how effective the prologue is, and if it is even necessary. If it is, the rest of the novel draft will help me decide if I need to add or change something to make the novel work as a whole.
I don't think I've ever gone into a piece of writing thinking about that. Not fiction writing, anyway. I definitely wrote papers that way in college. Informed by an outline, I was conscious of the point I wanted to make, of my supporting facts, and of the argument I was making to support my point. Fiction, I think, isn't much different.
A fiction writer is trying to entertain the reader, first and foremost. There may be a theme, a worldview, a point the writer is trying to make, but regardless of whether that's true of a piece of fiction or not, the essence of the fiction is that it must entertain the reader. In order to do that, it must set the tone, be well paced, be entertaining, and work as a whole.
That's where craft comes in.
In the past, I've written into the dark, so to speak, trying to write a story straight through and somehow have it achieve all of that. I'm sure there are writers who can do that, experienced writers who practice their craft so effortlessly that it's almost automatic. I'm not even close to that level of proficiency.
Fiction writing is like most skills. It takes lots of practice to get good at it. Talent exists, but practice hones talent. Even with talent, the first time you do something you are bad at it compared to someone who has been doing it every day for years. Even someone talented.
That's why writing as much as possible is so damn important.
But, at some point you have to start thinking deeper. Start practicing in earnest. It takes focused practice to really improve, not just the appearance of practice.
I played a lot of sports when I was younger. Just going out and playing will teach you the basics, develop the necessary hand-eye coordination, and get you a basic level of competence. In short, the sport you are playing will go from looking like nonsense when you play it to actually bearing a resemblance to the way an experienced, even professional player plays it. It will at least look like you are playing the same game. And talented folks will show that talent.
But to take it to the next level, you must at some point begin to focus your practice. You have to learn drills, and repeat them. A lot. You have to think about what you are doing, and how you can do it better. You will probably need coaching to improve past a certain point, because you may not be the best judge of what you are doing and what you still need to work on.
Sound familiar? It should. It's how you learn any skill. In some cases, you do all this without realizing about it, like when you get a job, do it five or six days a week for eight hours a day for years, get trained by your company, coached by your managers, and probably even do some self-directed study and reading on your own time. You might even attend the occasional conference.
Writing is no different.
Please realize, I'm not speaking from a pedestal here. I'm a moron. I've read this before, in a variety of forms from a variety of authors, but it's only today, after consciously trying to apply craft to writing that prologue yesterday, that I realize it is true.
So yeah, first draft of the prologue is done. Time to work on Chapter One.
See, I'm still procrastinating. I have a lot left to learn.
See you tomorrow.
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