As mentioned by an author before, in the process of writing, he always wrote a certain number of words when he was kavan, and even looked back at what was written in front of him, and the more he looked at it, the more dissatisfied he became, so that in the end he did not even have the confidence to write it.
The advice given by Yan Xijun is that no matter how well it is written, first try to complete the first draft and then make changes.
Chekhov also said: "All the manuscripts of the true masters of writing are scribbled and scribbled, crossed and crossed, cut and pasted, and the places where the cuts and pastings are also painted and changed..."
Today, the study jun will talk in detail about this topic, why it is recommended to make changes after writing the first draft, and how to revise after writing the first draft.
<h1>1. Is it difficult for only my first draft to look at directly? </h1>
Hemingway once said, The first draft of everything is. ”
Although the words are a little rough, they are telling the truth.
The first thing we need to know is that it is normal for the first draft to be unsatisfactory, most writers have unsatisfactory first drafts, and 99% of good works are modified.
When Hemingway wrote "Farewell Forever, Weapon", the first draft took 6 months, and after writing the first draft, he began to revise it over and over again, and it took another 5 months to revise the draft alone.
So when writing the first draft, don't pay too much attention to how many problems your work currently has, first focus on writing the whole story, the most important thing at this stage is to complete the first draft.
Haruki Murakami also suggested in an interview:
"When I wrote the first draft, even if I was a little hairy, I just had to stride forward, and my head was only thinking about it. Take advantage of the momentum to catch the wave of time and move forward. Everything that appeared in front of his eyes did not let go, and he grabbed it one by one. Of course, even if this is the case, the story will inevitably contradict itself here and there, but do not take it to heart, and adjust it after writing. ”
In fact, the process of writing the first draft is also a process for the author to have a deep understanding of his own work.
Before the first draft is completed, the story is always just an idea, and the characters and plots that the author hopes to create exist only in the mind or in the brief outline.
After all, the capacity of our brains or the amount of information in the outline is limited, before the next pen, you can only see a whole framework, those small parts are unknown, only these ideas are all turned into real words, the world in the story can appear in front of you in its entirety.
You can imagine yourself as a Creator, and this story is the world you have created. In the beginning, the world still does not exist, and you will first make a prototype of a world according to the original idea.
In this initial world, there may be problems with the logic operation, maybe the details will be problematic, but after all, there are already prototypes, and you only need to modify them on this basis, it is easier than imagining.
<h1>2. What should I do if I can't finish the first draft? </h1>
When you adopt the above suggestions, you may have a headache: how do you stick to the first draft?
According to the knowledge of Yan Xijun, some authors are not accustomed to writing outlines, but are more inclined to rely on inspiration to write and think.
However, in order to avoid the situation that you do not know how to develop the next plot halfway through writing, Yan Xijun still recommends that you set an outline in advance.
The most important thing is that before you officially start writing, you need to determine the general direction of the main plot. Especially in the process of writing a long novel, there will be various difficulties encountered in the middle of the way, so that it is difficult to complete in the end.
The advantage of writing a good outline is that at least you don't get off track and cause the writing to collapse.
Next, you can start to officially write.
If you're not sure if you can stick to the first draft at this point, learn what Haruki Murakami did.
When Murakami wrote a long novel, he would mandatorily stipulate that he had to write ten pages of manuscript paper every day (each page was exactly four hundred words), and even if he did not write well, he would write ten pages of manuscript paper, and if any time of thoughts was gushing, he would stop at about ten pages.
The explanation he gives is:
"Because when doing a long-term job, regularity has great significance. When writing is smooth, take advantage of the situation to write more, and when it is not smooth, it will not write, so it will not produce regularity. So I'm like playing a timecard, basically no more, no less, every day, I write ten pages. ”
Study Jun feels that you may wish to learn this method, set yourself a fixed goal every day, and form a writing habit. Of course, you don't have to be like him, you have to write enough ten pages a day, and this goal can be done by your own standards.
<h1>3. Should it be deleted or supplemented when revised? </h1>
Fitzgerald divided the writer into two types of revision styles, one trim and one complementary.
For pruned writers, they prefer to write everything they can think of when writing their first draft. Therefore, in the revision stage, the main thing is to delete those unnecessary places.
Thomas Wolfe in Genius Catcher is a typical example of this type of writer, even reaching the extreme proportion of deletions (although not voluntarily...). ）。
At first, his manuscripts were moved into the editor's office in boxes. In movies, the most common scene we see is either Wolff and the editor making drastic deletions or arguing over whether a certain paragraph should be deleted or not.
But for supplemental writers, they prefer to write a condensed version of the first draft first, and then when they modify, they fill in the details according to the overall logic.
These two types of modification styles have nothing to do with good or bad, and are completely selected according to their own situation.
In addition, after writing the first draft, you can completely put aside the identity of the author for a while, look at your manuscript from the perspective of editors and readers, and ask yourself some questions while watching:
After reading the beginning, do I still have the desire to read it?
Is there enough conflict and suspense in the scene?
Is it logical for the plot to develop in this way?
Is the twist here blunt?
Are the words and reactions of the characters here real?
・Is it not used behind the foreshadowing set in front?
Does the ending solve all the problems?
Generally speaking, a good work needs to be revised more than once, so when writing the first draft, don't have too many concerns, just write it according to what you thought at the time
Resources:
1. James Scott Bell, From Idea to Bestseller: Revision and Self-Editing, translated by Liu Zailiang, Chinese Min University Press
2. Haruki Murakami, "My Profession is a Novelist", translated by Shi Xiaowei, Nanhai Publishing Company
3. Kawakami And Haruki Murakami, "The Owl Takes Off at Dusk", translated by Lin Shaohua, Shanghai Translation Publishing House
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