Every Draft Is A First Draft

I took a short story workshop once with a hard nosed, no B.S., "but what does that mean!" type of writer. He was great and had an impatience for my overblown language that I'd never experienced anywhere else, that ultimately did me a world of good. He taught story, story, story.

But one thing he said has stuck with me for a long time, primarily because I don't understand what he meant. At our first workshop session, I prefaced what I was about to read with a "this is a first draft" disclaimer.

The short story workshop leader enigmatically replied, "Aren't they all?"

Well...huh?

I've never known anyone else to think like this. I thought we'd agreed that "writing is rewriting", which would mean that the more drafts we do, in theory the better the work gets? Nothing should be like a first draft as we reshape and polish...crack story problems, refine character, get a firmer sense of theme.

But every time I finish a rewrite I sense what he meant. You try to fix problems but in the immediate aftermath of the FADE OUT, you don't really have much perspective. Face it, you can come up with dumb ideas/fixes anywhere in the process.

I'll never wholly agree with him that all drafts are first drafts, but I'll say that I have learned you need to give yourself permission to make a mess and get it wrong regardless of what number draft it is.


Photo by mpclemens