First Drafts
First drafts are murders of passion; second drafts wash the scene before the police arrive.
Glendalough, Ireland 2017
First drafts are murders of passion; second drafts wash the scene before the police arrive.
A first pass is aggressive, visceral, and sentences arise from instinct, as the urge to propel forward shoves the narrative. Like a murder of passion—crammed with emotion and chaos and reflex—forethought isn’t a factor. Lack of planning sprays the walls with blood. Madness ignores reason. Sentences pile, words repeat, paragraphs are muddled, but the act is complete, finished in a breathless huff.
Picture a drunken, crazed fiction writer, beset with the flash of an idea at 3:00 AM, straining to scribble it faster; picture a crying diarist, just home from a horrid evening, a wine glass within reach; picture an angry customer, infuriated by some company, punching away at a keyboard to knock out a letter of complaint.
With a final period, seats are adjusted, eyes are opened, tensed jaws are relaxed. The writer looks away from the paper. There are overturned tables. Bloodstained carpets.
But the actual labor has only just begun, as paragraphs must be scrubbed before any readers appear, just like the fingerprints must be wiped before the police knock.
Too many writers spend their first draft lost in hesitation. They don’t plow ahead, even though a first draft should capture their passions. Once a writer has some impetus—an idea, an emotion, a spark—the goal is to match those sentiments with words.
Only after a writer has smeared their hands with ink and scuffed the corners of flipped pages should they lift the red pen. That’s the moment to identify whether the words match the original sensation and the moment to close any gaps. Speed and thrust is reserved for first drafts; editing involves patience and review.
In the beginning, the worst outcome isn’t bad writing—it’s the blank page.
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