The Secret Power of Unlearning

Sometimes, learning is unlearning. It took me five years to draft my first novel. And two weeks to draft the second. In the process, I unlearned everything I'd been taught and learned something new.

Below are eight game-changers I wish I knew five years ago: First drafts are rubbish. Plotting and planning. Bad writing. Progressive writing. The need for speed. The power of stopping. Fresh eyes. Rewriting, revision and editing.

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First Drafts Are Rubbish: Treat Them As Such

No one will, or should, read your first draft. Dance like nobody's watching. Write like nobody's reading. 

Grammar, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary, formatting are important tools. Leave the toolbox, locked away, in the shed for now.

Think of it like this. You're a builder. Your job is to renovate a kitchen. Do you arrive at the job and immediately start drilling? No. You look, you discuss, you measure, you think, you sketch, you plan, you revise. Then you pull out the sledge hammer, the drill, the saw, the hammer and the sander.

The first draft is where you discover the story. The setting. The characters. The tensions. The climax. Run with it. Write wild. Write free. Have fun.

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Planning And Plotting: Less Is More

Forget the plotter vs pantser argument. Be neither and be both. Spend one day, no more, roughly planning out the first draft.

Tools you'll need:

1. A4 sheet of paper
2. Pencil
3. Eraser

Jot down the standard beats from whichever framework you prefer. For example: set up, the hook, inciting incident, the turning point and so on.

Describe each point with a single sentence. 

Remember: KISS? 

Keep It Simple Stupid… Is this acronym outdated? Maybe.

But the point is: wherever possible, avoid complexity.

This is the plot plan. The plan plot.

Use it as a map. Refer to it when you lose your way. It's for use only in case of emergencies.

First Drafts Are a Safe Place For Bad Writing and Wild Imaginations

Bad writing is what the doctor ordered.

Imagine if the goal was to write as bad as possible. If bad writing was the aim of the game, how many writers would suffer from writer's block?

Give yourself permission to produce terrible writing. Forget about the quality of the writing and make space for ideas to emerge.

If you focus on good writing you imprison your imagination in a tiny, cold, concrete cell. If you embrace bad writing you free your imagination. You unleash your imagination. Your imagination runs wild. Your imagination dances in green fields bursting with sunflowers and hummingbirds. 

Try it. 

And let me know in the comments: Does permission to write badly stave off procrastination and writer's block? Does it unleash creativity? Was it fun? 

Bad writing also eases revision. How scary can it be to start revising bad writing?

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Progressive Writing: Don't Look Back

Reading what you've written is forbidden. Don't worry if you can't remember the colour of a characters eyes. Push forward. You will correct everything during the revision phase.

Tell the story… 

In fact, don't write! Dictate the story into your phone. Speak it as though you were telling someone this story. Forget perfection, embrace excitement.

Focus on the finish line.

If it helps, think of the first draft as a race. If you were in a race, would you ever run back towards the start line? No! Keep your eyes on the finish line and don't look back.

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The Need For Speed: Slow Down Later

Novel writing isn't a race. I know. I know. I just said think of it as a race. I meant it. Think of the first draft as a race. 

Completing a first draft is possibly the most important step towards writing a novel, but it isn't a novel. Novels take time. The later stages are long and slow. Which is why you should complete the first stage as fast as possible.

Here's how I drafted my second novel in two weeks.

Day One: I wrote the idea out by hand. I used blank A4 Paper. I had 24 pages of messy ideas at the end of the day.

Day Two: I used one sheet of A4 paper and roughly plotted out the novel according to the beats of 'The Hero's Journey.'

Day Three: I started telling the story. That's right, telling. Not writing. I dicatated into my phone. I have Scrivener on my phone. I used a new document for each scene. I spoke with my eyes shut to dodge the temptation to edit typos.

Dictation is not perfect. 'She sighed' might appear as 'she sized'. My character Glorian frequently appears as Lorain. It doesn't matter. That's what rewriting is for.

Speed is your elixir. During this stage, allow yourself to ride the creative wave of discovery.

The hard truth. Just because you have an idea doesn't mean it will equate to a novel. Think of all the unfinished novels out there. According to Leilanie Stewart, only 30 in 1000 novels are ever finished. 

A staggering 97% of writers don't finish their first draft.

And there's nothing wrong with that! 

Say, after week one, you realise your idea isn't novel worthy. Well great, lucky you didn't spend six-months on planning and research. 

What are you left with? A fleshed-out idea. Perhaps a short story or a novella? Who knows, but you have a good foundation to build from.

Risk it for the biscuit, right? Congratulate yourself for trying. And for having the insight to know when to stop.

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The Power of Stopping: Set Aside and Forget

If you reach this point, pat yourself on the back, you're in the 98th percentile.

You deserve a break… 

In fact, when it comes to this stage, more is more. Get busy doing something else. Forget the novel completely.

As writers, we often don't know when to stop. I believe there is incredible power in stopping. Allowing yourself to say, 'no more.' 

I'm only now discovering the power of stopping, so I am no authority. Stephen King, however, is an authority. 

In King's book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he recommends leaving your first draft to rest for a minimum of six weeks… Six weeks! That's how long King believes it takes to distill a first draft.

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Fresh Eyes: Hands-Off Reading

Push though the inevitable cringing and eye-rolling as you read your shitty first draft. Keep reading. Don't stop.

This stage mirrors the writing stage. Read your draft from start to finish as quick as possible.

You can scratch down suggestions in a notebook while you read. But keep them short. Simple. Trust me. There is ample time for rewrites and edits soon.

To avoid the temptation of editing, try this: Save the draft as a PDF. Then send it to your kindle, phone or other electronic reader.

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Rewriting, Revision and Editing: Metaphorical Speed-Bumps

I made the mistake of editing my draft up-side-down and inside-out. I wasted shit-tons of time. A Shit-ton is the equivalent to 24 metric assloads, or one-tenth of a fuck-ton.

Learn from my mistakes. 

My story wasn't solid yet. I spent days editing chapters I later deleted.

Approach this process in stages. Macroscopic to microscopic. Remember the builder with his toolbox? It's time to pull out the tools.

Sledgehammer: Take a sledgehammer to the story and smash it to pieces. Take the good bits and leave the rest. Focus on: story arc. Character arcs, backstories and motivations. Plot structure and theme. What is the book about? What is the core question?

Drop Saw, drill and sander: Time to start building. Assess each scene. Scenes need action. Examine each scene via the MRU lens: Motivation Reaction Units. Refine tense and dialogue. Assess pacing and tone. Build your world. Strengthen setting.

Hammer and nails: The finishing touches. The line edit. Take all the elements of a great story and concentrate on the details: Grammar and punctuation. Sentence clarity. Reading ease. Consistency and accuracy.

It's important not to rush this process. 

After all: Rewriting is Writing.

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Stevi-Lee Alver is an Australian writer and tattoo artist. She lives in the middle of Brazil with her wife. She loves bush walks and waterfalls but misses the ocean.