DRAFTING DRAFTS

 

I was mulling over the strange creatures called Second Drafts.

(Full disclosure, my WIP is now on its fifth draft, which is not nearly as interesting)

 

So, if first drafts are the first-time words typed onto a document (or penned on a page) and subsequent drafts are re-visioning aspects of the story to a neater, shinier polish, what in the plumb-cake is worth noting about draft number two?

 

To me, it turns out to be the very first time I meet the story, as in, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Story.”

 

Yeah, I wrote it. But while first drafting I was not fully conscious, and I was not “other.” I lived it, suffered it, rejoiced with it, and finally collapsed on my bed to rest when the whole adventure ended, hopefully in a fine resolution.

 

I try to neither look nor think of the story for a month after first drafting. I am catching my breath the way one does after a race, waiting for the steady pace of ordinary breathing and life to return. Only after that happens, will I embark on the next stage, where I meet the story.

 

It’s an interesting experience. In the best case, I have to force myself to stop after a daily portion of polish/add/strike out, usually not exceeding two thousand words or so. When the story (which I had written, so you’d think I should know how it goes) is riveting, it means that it’s working.

When it isn’t, I mull over why. Both happen even in the same manuscript.

 

It’s a heady thing to be surprised by one’s own creative choices. Think of it as a rare opportunity to make one’s own acquaintance. Friends who are not writers have described something like it when remembering something they had done or said which they long forgot. A friend to whom I quoted a letter she had sent long ago put it this way: “Did I say this? That was very insightful of me.”

 

Yes, second drafts are interesting. It’s worth first drafting just to have the second draft experience.