I’ll Have a Draught. Not a Post About Happy Hour (Mostly)

Lemme tell you something I hate.

I hate it when someone comes to a writing group or asks me to critique something and says, “I just wrote it this morning.”

Whatever you wrote this morning is not fit to be read by anyone but you. And if you’re any kind of half-decent editor, you won’t like it much.

Rough Draft? Don’t Be Daft.

The random collections of letters, some formed into words, that fly off your fingertips is not your Rough Draft.  It’s pre-rough. Beta-rough. Aspiring-to-be rough.

Work on it. Fix it up. Smooth it out. Then, read it again. If you get through it without making too many changes, then, maybe, you have a bona fide Rough Draft.

But don’t show that to me, either.

Let it percolate. Come back to it. Set aside time to work on it some more. Rethink it. Save a copy and take a different approach. Tweak that for a while. Delete it. Go back to the original. And repeat.

Print it out just so you can crumple it up and throw it away.

Then try again.

If you’re good, some hours or days (or weeks) later you may graduate from Rough Draft to First Draft. At that point, if you’re sure—if you’ve been through it dozens of times and are convinced you can’t make it any better at this point—well, then, maybe it’s time to show it to someone.

Ideally, not me.

There Are No Bad Critiques, Unless You Ignore Them

This is where you put on your body armor, or I should say ego armor.

Your reader(s) will surely see problems you didn’t. Some, you’ll wish you’d seen. And those will make you a better writer. Others, you wouldn’t have seen in a million years, and those will make you a much better writer.

Even if you disagree with some critique points, just knowing that there are people out there who think that way will also make you a better writer. And if two or more people make the same point you disagree with, it’s probably time to reexamine your assumptions.

If you had presented that first-off-the-fingers mess, or even that slightly better Rough Draft, you wouldn’t have gotten as much out of the critiques. Now, rather than wasting everyone’s time and effort (including yours) taking your material from “Totally Raw” to “Barely Readable,” you can rise from “Barely Readable” toward “Actually Not Bad.” And from there, it’s a relatively short trip to “Hmm, Pretty Good.”

It’s hard as a writer to have pride of ownership in your work and also be open to criticism, editing, and (GASP!) rewriting.

(If “rewriting” is too much for you to bear, do what I do. Never use the word. I prefer “revising,” even if I’m starting over from a blank page.)

Somehow, a writer needs to have passion about their work but at the same time not feel like a critique partner is attacking your actual child.

Is there a psychologist in the house?

Pride and Prejudice

A small example.

In the first writing class I took, there was a woman who was not a very good writer and didn’t have much of value to say during critiques.

Then one day, my reading included the following: “Bridget got out of bed and slipped on the oversized tee shirt that lay in a heap on the floor.”

The woman said she was confused. She thought “slipped” meant that Bridget fell down. At first, I dismissed her critique. I thought it was clear that Bridget put the tee shirt on.

Which way did you understand it?

Anyway, a face-palm later, I avoided any possible confusion, making it “…slipped into the oversized tee shirt…” Thank you, critique partner, for seeing something I never would have.

Start a Savings Plan

No, not for money. There’s none of that in writing. Save your drafts, even if they’re terrible.

Create a naming convention and save a new draft anytime you make, or plan to make, significant changes. This way, you’ll see your progress, be able to go back and compare, and also have the option of salvaging some passages you deleted along the way.

All this effort will earn the thanks of everyone on whom you inflict your early work. But even getting to “Hmm, Pretty Good” is not enough. Sorry, but you still need a professional editor.

Now, About that Happy Hour

I sometimes fantasize about opening a pub. If I ever do, I’ll call it The Rough Draught. All the beers will be raw, but somewhat aged. Murky, but translucent. Bitter, but drinkable.

And all will improve if left to settle for a while.

The bartenders will be editors. The customers will be dissatisfied. And there will never be any agents or publishers in the place.

There will be no Happy Hour, either. We’re writers, after all.

You’ll still get half off rough draughts, though, during All Day Unhappy Hour.