Keeping The Drafts
My previous post about chapters overhaul made me wonder if many other writers do that—keeping their drafts?
I’ve noticed that I tend to do that a lot, not to force them into a manuscript later on, not in the hopes of using them for something else, but simply as memories, so to say. I file them into “old drafts” folders, and months or years later, I’m always glad to be able to read them again. These aren’t necessarily short drafts; sometimes, they’ll be entire chapters that I’ve rewritten, or that I’ve decided to not integrate at all into the story anymore. There’s a stash of short stories in these folders as well, of course.
I’m not sure why I do that. Perhaps I don’t like the idea of losing weeks’ worth of work, or perhaps I appreciate being able to reflect on my former ways of writing, to see how I’ve evolved. I get this feeling very often when I take back texts I’ve typed in English four or five years ago: it allows me to realize how much I’ve improved since then, and this is an interesting thing.
I’ve already wondered if I just shouldn’t trash these drafts completely, in order to not get “influenced” by them in any case, but I know I’d regret it in a few years from now, since I always do.
Maybe I’m just some kind of weird collector when it comes to this!
September 27th, 2005 00:22
Oh, boy. Touchy subject here. I keep Everything. All my drafts.
Why? That’s the question, right?
I think I’m afraid of losing a piece of writing. A better piece of writing. Maybe it has to do with a lot of self doubt. Who know?
However, it happened to me once or twice that after a few revisions I went back to the original draft and used that one. So it’s a good thing I kept it.
I like how you put it – a collector.
September 27th, 2005 02:38
I have everything (and I write a lot of drafts in notebooks, so it takes up a bit of space) that I’ve written in the past few years.
Actually, I’m really angry at myself for not having kept all the stuff I was writing when I was 13-16. From time to time, I get the urge to look back on it.
September 27th, 2005 13:33
You want to see the piles of trees I’ve killed? I never toss a single sheet unlil the project/novel is finally done…and even then it sits around taking up space for a long time after and evetually I start to get the next project piling up and only then do I hit the shredder. And that’s just because I REALLY need the space for the new stuff.
September 27th, 2005 17:56
I used to save all my drafts, and they were legion, because when I started freelancing I went through so many drafts until I got to the finished product it was downright scary. When I did book reviews (300 words for a 300 page book—like one word per page—lol) I especailly wanted to make sure every word chosen was le? mot juste—as if it were a poem. In this way, I almost always avoided the slings and arrows of an outrageous editor, and my stuff was printed as is. (It also helped that I had a lot of copyediting experience). Now I’ve become much more laissez faire about it all, in part because the only writing I do now is blog-related.
September 27th, 2005 19:01
Melly — I must say I’ve had these fears at times, too: “what if I lose a better piece of writing?” Most of the time it’s not the case at all, of course, and the revision is always much better, but… I guess it never harms to keep the first draft “just in case of”.
September 27th, 2005 19:03
Cavan — Hear, hear! Hell, there are things I’ve written when I was 9-10 that I deeply regret not having kept, even though I know the writing was awful and the story crappy. For that matter, I’ve also lost my very first comics, one that I drew when I was 6 (hey, I was proud of being able to write something else than my own name only!). Nostalgic people like me should really never throw anything away, I suppose.
September 27th, 2005 19:04
Jennifer and Elvire — Now I suppose we should be grateful for the computer tool, since it at least prevents us from stacking entire piles of drafts on paper everywhere?
September 28th, 2005 16:23
When revising, if I hack out a chunk of writing that I like, but just isn’t suited to the story…I copy/paste it in a scraps file. (This pertains only to my novel/series work.)
I print on both sides of the paper to save money, so I keep a draft if the printing’s only on the first side. If, however, I’ve incorporated all necessary changes, etc., and can’t use the paper, into the recycle bin it goes.
October 14th, 2006 09:22
I almost always avoided the slings and arrows of an outrageous editor, and my stuff was printed as is