The Process Evolves

 

I have long considered first drafts to be the heavy lifting of writing. I enjoy playing with ideas as I put together the outline, and there’s great satisfaction in editing and rewriting, as I can see the raw material of the first draft evolve into what I’d consider an acceptable book.

 

I’m trying something new with the first draft of the next Penns River book (working title The Spread). It’s early on – only a handful of chapters in – but the idea shows great promise, and it’s making the first draft a lot more fun to write.

 

A little background: I used Scrivener for the first drafts of the last couple of books, mainly so I can re-arrange the outline as needed, and to keep notes on the same screen as the chapter I’m working on. For the second draft, I split my screen, with Scrivener on top and Word below, then retype everything. To me, that’s better than trying to edit what I’ve already written, as once it’s on the screen, there’s a certain permanence implied. I talked about this before when discussing how it’s easier to leave one’s darlings along the side of the road than it is to kill them.

 

For The Spread I decided to leverage the idea that I was re-writing the first draft no matter how it went. This first draft is much sketchier. What I know goes in, which is mostly dialog, I write up. Everything else – attributions, narrative, descriptions, action – is condensed into a more or less comprehensive set of notes that I can flesh out when I do the rewrite. The end result is somewhat similar to a screenplay, at least visually:

 

[THEY ROLL UP ON THE HOUSE. MCGINNISS COVERs THE BACK. SISLER AND BOSTON GO TO THE DOOR. AS DOC DOESN’T HAVE HIS VEST ON, SISLER KNOCKS.]

S. Jamal Whitlock!

[WHITLOCK STEPS ONTO STOOP BETWEEN COPS.]

JW. Took ya’ll motherfuckers long enough to get here.

S. Stop right there.

JW. I’m give myself up. [DOC DRAWS HIS WEAPON.] Whoa. Ain’t no need for gun play. I told you I’ze giving up.

[CONFUSION. THE COPS DON’T WANT HIM THAT CLOSE, HANDS OPEN OR NOT. THERE’S SOME TUSSLING WHILE THEY GET THE SITUATION HOW THEY WANT IT. PART OF IT CONSISTS OF THEM TRYING TO GET WHITLOCK INTO THE HOUSE AND HIM TRYING TO STAY ON THE PORCH.]

JW. Motherfuckers! I told you I’m coming out, let me get out and you can cuff me up right here on the stoop.

[DOC HAS HIS GUN DRAWN AND AIMED]

D. put your hands out to the sides with your palms facing me.

 

The idea is not to get bogged down in describing things that are peripheral to the main point of the scene. I’ll make those decisions in the second draft

 

What I don’t know yet, and won’t for a couple or three months, is if this makes the second draft as burdensome as the first draft used to be. I’m betting that it doesn’t. First, much of what I’ll have to describe will have had time to ripen in the back of my mind. I’ll also have the context of what else is to come, so if I want to drop in a telling detail, I’ll already know it’s telling.

 

It may also give me an opportunity to decide something doesn’t need to be said. I’ve noticed George V. Higgins having more of an influence on my writing of late, without me consciously making an effort to allow him to do so. (Unlike how I deliberately added some Joe Wambaugh-esque elements in recent books.) I’m not trying to be Higgins – no one can do that – but if that’s where my voice seems to want to go, I know better than to tell it not to.

 

Like I said, it’s an experiment, and it’s early days. Check back here when I’m halfway through the second draft and see how pissy I am. Or, hopefully, not.