Quick and Dirty, or How I Like My First Drafts

I have a problem: I strive for perfection. In many areas of my life, including my day job, this is a good trait. My employer, not to mention my colleagues, appreciates well-researched, grammatically correct and error-free documents. But family, not so much. They could care less if the grocery list reads “potatos” or “veg”. It gets the job done.

So, in some ways, it all depends on the context. Sometimes we need to be perfect or as close to it as we can get. Other times, we just need to get the job done. Perfection can come afterwards (or, in the case of the grocery list, not at all).

What’s that got to do with fiction writing, you say? Everything.

When I write a story, I start out with a first page that I read and re-read perhaps a thousand times by the time I have completed the manuscript. That’s because every time I open up that file, I see that first line, that first paragraph, that first page, and I can’t resist titivating with it a little. Take out a word. Add a semi-colon. Before you know it, I have a perfect first page. But such initial perfection can often come at the cost of the whole.

There have been times when I’ve spent so much effort and energy on that first page that I’ve neglected to finish the story at all. Oops. By the time I got around to the last page, where I left off last time I was actually writing and not just adjusting the first sentence, the story has grown stale. I no longer care about the characters or plot I was so excited to put down on paper just a few days or weeks ago.

That’s because I wanted to the first draft to be perfect. Yet that’s not the job of a first draft.

A first draft is meant to put the skeleton of a story into black and white. No more, no less.

The flesh and blood of the story comes later during the process of editing and revising and, yes, rewriting. It is because of the desire to save ourselves this draining and occasionally tedious part of the process that we concentrate on creating a perfect first draft. But there is no short cut to perfection. Perfection comes with revision and rewriting. Period.

Don’t spend time polishing the bones of your skeleton. Write that first draft quick and dirty. Get it all on the page. Finish your story.

You can add detail and characterization in the second draft. You can correct plot points and inconsistencies in the third draft. Breathe life into your story bit by bit, with a careful hand on the bellows, and it will live forever.

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Patterns in Romance Fiction

People who don't read romance novels have been heard to say that the entire genre revolves around a handful of cliches.  The powerful Type A male and the woman who tames him, the experienced rake and the beautiful virgin, the kidnappings, the marriages of convenience, the secret babies...etc.

I say, not true!  Yes, these aspects still appear in many novels but they are not cliches any more than the suggestion than a novel about star-crossed lovers would necessarily be a re-working of Romeo and Juliet.  These are patterns and patterns persist because of their universality.  If, as some literary experts have it, there are only thirty-odd plots in literature and Shakespeare has done them all (and well too) then why is anyone bothering to write anymore?

Well, simply, because it hasn't all been done yet.  Every new novel has the potential to add a twist on the old thirty-odd plots.

Patterns are good.  They give readers a foundation of the familiar from which the writer can jump off with their own take or twist.  Done right, a pattern does not have to become a tired cliche.

Romance fiction itself relies on certain rules.  For one, the romantic element of the story takes precedence over all other aspects of the plot.  There is a difference between a mystery with a romantic subplot and a romance with a mysterious subplot.  Read any Agatha Christie mystery and you will almost invariably find a romance brewing between two of the characters but the mystery is always predominant.  While the romantic subplot may throw a twist into the works, the real purpose of the story is to find out whodunnit and why.  The romance adds a vital flavour to the mystery.  Similarly, the addition of a crime and the process of figuring out who committed it, in addition to adding danger into the lives of the main characters, can drive much of a romance novel.  However, the end purpose is to use the crime to bring the two characters together; the solution to the crime itself is incidental.

Another frequent romance pattern is the Happily Ever After (or HEA) ending.  While not all romance publishers or specific lines demand it, most still do.  In other words, the two main characters should end up together (often on the verge of marriage) when the last page in the book has been turned over.  They've worked out the differences that kept them apart throughout the book, have overcome many obstacles large and small, and have realized their love for each other.  They belong together and their coming together at the end of the book leaves us with a feeling of rightness.  All is warm and fuzzy in the world.

I have to admit that I enjoy the tried-and-true patterns.  I've even produced manuscripts using many of the patterns I noted above.  Hey, if it ain't broke...

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The End of the Affair

Over the years, I've written more than a dozen romance novels.  These manuscripts live in the bottom of my hard drive, coming out only once in a while or so to be re-read, re-loved, and wrapped up carefully again and put away.  They are, by default, for my eyes only.  Some of them I have tried to publish, been rejected, and tried again.  Each rejection leads to revisions, doubts, and self-flagellation.  But each rejection also makes me hug my creations closer.  My poor manuscripts.  If I don't love you, who ever will?  The answer is clearly no one.

Some of these manuscripts I have never submitted for publication.  These are truly creatures of my own midnight experiments, written long after the networks no longer air entertaining programs and most reasonable people are in bed.  I, too, should have been in bed on those nights where I was clattering away on my laptop and falling in love with my many characters.

Over the years, I have not only created more than a dozen loving couples (well, in the end they end up loving -- in the beginning of the book, they might fight like gladiators).  I've agonized over what they will do, what they will say, and, most importantly, how they will react to one another.  I've learned how they talk, walk, kiss, and make love.

But it's more than that.  I can obsess about my friends and family in that way (not that that would be at all healthy).  But my feelings for my characters go beyond mere interest, concern, curiousity or even love.

These are my creations.

I breathed life into each and every heroine, have molded each and every hero.  Given them names.  Given them their mannerisms, their laughs, their personal sense of style.

So how do I say good-bye to them?

Well, first of all, I've left my characters in a good place.  If I've done my job as a writer, all doubts and misunderstandings have been explained and swept aside.  All loose ends are tied in a tight little bow.  So, the plot is resolved.

Secondly, the characters have grown.  My plot has put them through a lot.  Their love has been tested, but even more so has their character.  The woman who never felt that she belong can find belonging in the dawning of her new life.  The man who was left bitter by betrayal can trust again.  And so on.  So the characters too have progressed to a place where they can be set free.

Lastly, and most importantly for me, the emotional rollercoaster I've put both characters and reader (singular, since it's often just me at this point) has come to an end and the paying ticketholders can exit the ride.  After running through the gamut of emotions, I can let everyone off of the hook, satisfied and cathartically released.  Because, really, isn't that what we all need -- to feel vividly alive as we read, yet knowing that we can put the book down at the end of the day and head back into our real real lives?

Now, of course, we have to put the book down and I have to press Save and store my completed file away.

Saying good-bye is like closing the book.  I suppose, literally, it is...The End.

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