We’ve all heard (and I certainly appreciate) Anne Lamott’s advice about just going ahead and writing a “shitty rough draft.” Jane Smiley feels about the same when it comes to the first draft, but she puts a different spin on it in 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel.
“Every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.”
Smiley celebrates the creation of the rough draft because you have arrived at that destination you set out for.
“To write through to the end of the rough draft, in spite of time constraints, second thoughts, self-doubts, and judgments of all kinds, is an act of faith that is invariably rewarded. The rough draft of a novel is the absolute paradigm of something that comes from nothing.”
But your work is far from over – your true test as a writer is just beginning. Now you are rewriting, revising and editing.
“Your job in rewriting is to make it better. ‘Better’ is not a global trait, but a group of specific qualities you can work toward one by one, knowing that they work ecologically. Every novel is a system.”
And although your rough draft was perfect in its completion, there is no perfect novel. Thankfully, “Your novel doesn’t have to be perfect to find a publisher; it only has to be promising and engaging.”
To do that, you must consider your reader.
“Bear in mind what you need to deliver to repay the reader’s expectations. You can’t deliver less than that, but you can deliver more.”
And how do you know when you are done?
“The feeling you are looking for as you decide whether you are finished is exhaustion. The sense that you have used up your inventiveness, your intelligence, and your ideas with regard to this story and these characters.”
All quotes are from Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel.
lara
My Story Writer
www.mywritingsoftware.com
Miss a post from the 13 Ways series? Find it here:
Kickoff: The 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel | The 13 Ways | I Hate Introductions | What is the Novel? |Who is the Novelist? | Origins: Where did the Novel Come From? | The Psychology of the Novel | Morality of the Novel | The Art of the Novel | The Novel and History | The Circle of the Novel | The Novel's Greatest Tradition: Obscure Beginnings | The Novel-Writing Pyramid of Skills | The Ultimate Fact About Novel-Writing