By Kait Carson
I throw things.
First Draft
Pottery things, that is. Bowls mostly. They’re easy. Someday, I hope to graduate to mugs. No denying they are a close cousin of bowls, but so far, functional handles have eluded me. That hasn’t stopped me from multiple, spectacularly unsuccessful attempts. For me, potting is a Zen experience. I can lose myself in the world of damp clay while I create something out of nothing. When I first started, I tried to make every ounce of clay belong. When bits and chunks oozed from between my fingers, I scraped them off my hands and patted them back into place. Then, a wise teacher shared a secret: “Let what isn’t important fall away. A good pot keeps only the essential elements.”
Essentials only, please
Although I didn’t realize it, the advice applies equally to writing. My early writing attempts were also spectacularly unsuccessful. Convinced the reader couldn’t understand the characters or plot without a full explanation, I strove like a banshee to keep every single syllable. Fortunately, a wise critique partner with way more experience than I took me, and her red pencil, in hand. She struck out entire pages of backstory and broad hints. The loss nearly broke my heart, but her margin notes felt like a masterclass. “Kill your darlings, Kait, books, and stories begin with the action. Readers don’t care what went before. They want to know the now. And they want to sift the clues from the red herrings on their own. It’s best not to bog them down with the non-essentials. They don’t need to see your first draft.”
Kill those darlings, darling.
The phrase ‘first draft’ struck like a knife in the heart. Had I been less eager to learn, it might have driven me into a first-class hissy fit. Except the words struck a chord. My drafting style is a combination of outliner and pantser. I need to know the full beginning—even the boring stuff—the ending, and four or five highlights in between so I know how my characters got there. Then I let my characters have at it and tell me the story. Together, we work through the twists and turns, wander down dead ends, and uncover motives, means, and opportunities. We argue over who gets top billing, who dies, and who did it. Pro tip: trust your characters. They know more than you do in the first draft. In Death by Sunken Treasure, they knew my plotted villain was innocent. The brats didn’t share the real villain with me until the second draft. Characters do not always play fair. I forgave them when I realized their killer followed the plot, and mine was more of a convenient walk-on.
Somewhere around what feels like the end of page 100,000, I know there’s a story hiding in all those words. That’s when the pottery knife comes out and I shave away the excess. Word by word, and phrase by phrase, I carve my darlings and the boring bits from the story. By the end of the third draft, only the essential remains, and the polishing begins.
How about you? Do you write tight from the start?
