05 Jul Draft and Revise

Draft and Revise.  Writing is an art of precision.  A writer has the ability to shape the world in their writing, to give his or her world shape and dimension.  In a broad scale, think one sentence holds up the one before it, and, also the one that follows it.

On a smaller scale consider that every word in the sentence is responsible for holding up the entire sentence.  One weak word can denigrate the entire thing.

For most writers—suspecting them all, of course, but leaving some room for anomaly—perfection didn’t happen in a single draft.  To realize something to its conclusion takes time.  Weaknesses in the work need to be made strong, the irrelevant should be omitted, or made relevant.

A Writer Learns

A writer learns of his or her weaknesses and drafts the work again.  Of course this could end up in a continuous loop of drafting—some novelists have claimed that they will write one hundred thousand words before they find a stories beginning (this is a lot of work, considering the average novel’s length is only ninety thousand words).  But, considering the microcosm of the word to the sentence, writing is a process.

Mark Twain once said, “The difference in the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter. ‘tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”  The way to draft is up to you, it’s up to your writing process, and how you work.

Writing’s an individual practice.  However, if you are unsure of how to draft your writing, consider this process as a start.  First, write your initial draft with regard for little perfection.  Find your story.  Even if what you are writing is a school paper, when you write it out, you might find that the most interesting parts, are areas to which you gave little importance.

Once you have found your story, find the shape of it.  Finally, clean it up, polish it, give each word a reason to shine.  If you are frustrated by the time in which it’s taken you to write something, remember that every minute put into perfecting a piece of writing, should only make the writing better, or at least hopefully better.