Sometimes I’ve got a real eye for contrarian advice—it just appeals to me. If you’re advising an action completely opposite from what everyone else is touting as the best practice, I’m probably paying pretty close attention to what you’re saying.
So when I came across a post that Thomas S. Roche wrote on The Night Bazaar blog, Ten Things I Did Wrong (which is a great post, with lots of interesting advice) and saw that Thomas sometimes tosses bad writing in the trashcan, I winced.
One of the clichés about being a writer involves the writer frenziedly typing at the old typewriter, with a wastebasket that’s nearly overflowing with crumpled-up paper. But I haven’t had that experience since the early 90s when I tried to write my first manuscript (and failed miserably.)
The advent of word processing has definitely changed the way writers write. We can store tons of unfinished manuscripts on our computers.
Thomas Roche, however, thinks that might be a mistake:
Me? I can’t stop blathering on with weird, insensible drivel, so sometimes I just gotta chuck it or I find yourself in a sea of useless prose. Hard drives seem infinite, until I start rambling, leaving dozens of fragmentary Word files.
Tossing an unsatisfying piece of writing in the trash is a liberating experience — it reminds you that the point is to write it until it’s good, not to cling to it if it sucks.
I know it’s counter-intuitive as all hell, but…try it sometime. It feels good.
Now, if the writing is lousy and it’s part of my manuscript, and I’m just writing the first draft, then I just leave the lousy stuff in there. I’m usually aware it’s awful, but that’s what the first draft is all about. I frequently put notes to myself in the margins of my manuscript using Word’s Track Changes feature. They say things like “fix this,” “find out if this could really happen,” “blah blah blah…write this better,” “find better wording,” etc. I can just move on if I acknowledge it’s bad and that I’ll fix it later.
But I do have lots of bits and pieces of stuff that just didn’t work in my manuscript. Odd ideas, bits of dialogue that don’t fit. I’ll make Word files of these things and sequester them in there. Sometimes I just jot stuff down on paper wherever I am around the house. My husband will walk up to me with a bemused expression and hand me some crumply Post-Its. “I think this is part of your book. There’s stuff about poison and guns on here.” He puts up with a lot. :)
Later, I’ll go through this stuff and wonder what the heck I was thinking. When I’m in the writing groove, these blatherings actually make sense. Out of context, they’re frequently junk. I wonder if I printed out the junkier stuff and had a big bonfire, how that would feel?
Thomas’ advice is contrary to everything I do, though. I carefully document my bad writing in different, dated files. I frequently will pull out the bits of dialogue and the unusual ideas and find a place for them (in a different form and better-written than before) in some other book.
But still—I think Thomas raises an interesting point. Where does it all stop? Maybe, sometimes, I take my own junk too seriously and should give some of it a good toss in the trashcan. Make it overflow, give visitors to my home something to take a look at: “Oh, I see. She was writing…”
Then again…not sure I could do it. :)
How about you? What do you do with the stuff you’ve edited out or that was extraneous material?
************************************
Sign up for the free, monthly Writer’s Knowledge Base newsletter for writing tips and resources and to be entered in our first giveaway. Details here.
Finger Lickin’ Dead launches June 7th!
I’m a post-it girl myself. Ideas strike at the most inopportune times. My writings can be found scribbled on the trash that litters my car. unfortunately, I tend to lose bits and pieces. I need a better system.
Great advice here from you. Thanks.
I keep it all together but it’s so I can look back on it and see how far I’ve come. When I’m done with a story or novel, I love sorting through my writing materials and seeing how my thoughts and ideas evolved.
I get what Thomas is saying though. If keeping the drivel is holding you back, then it’s probably good to toss it and move on.
With every book, I have a word file called CUT.doc that I keep in the desktop folder with my working files and notes. When I write some crappy or non-working bit that needs removed, I cut it from the working document and paste it into CUT. The CUT file gets archived along with everything else in the folder after the book goes to production.
I think of my cut.doc as like a scrap basket. Someday, I might decide to pull scraps out and find new projects to ease them into, but, so far, it’s been easier to write new material than to rework old cut stuff.
I don’t think I could toss it. It’s all one big mess in a single file that makes no sense at all but it gives me strange comfort to know it’s there.
Elizabeth – I have to admit, I’m not much of a pack rat. In fact, I can be pretty ruthless about getting rid of things, including my bad writing. I’ve got files for each of my books, and like you, I do keep first drafts and so on there. But honestly, if I kept everything I attempted, especially the really bad writing, I’d just confuse myself. So I go through and cull periodically.
I have a lot of FIX notations in my early drafts, too. Some things I just cut because they’re not that good and need to go. Others, I snip and paste into a new file that goes in the folder. I rarely ever go back to any of these, but I have them.
After a week of Blogger troubles, the Tiki Hut is OPEN! Yea!
I’ve never tossed anything big, but as I change things and delete lines, dialogue, and scenes, I don’t save it. I just delete.
I save my notes, jottings, drafts, but I weed the dead stuff out (I hope) in my edit. I don’t delete however because I enjoy going back and looking over what I had written and either grimace or laugh.
That’s hilarious about your husband finding the post it notes! :)
I have files of snips. And since I re-name my ms every day when I start writing, I have all the old versions as well. Every now an again, I’ll grab something I didn’t need in one book and it’ll get reworked into another…just often enough so I’m reluctant to delete anything for good. Kind of like throwing out that unmatched earring and as soon as you do, the mate shows up.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
Laura–That’s a good way of putting it. And sometimes, looking at my bad writing really CAN mess me up, but usually I just ignore it and keep writing.
Crystal Pistol–I make it a rule to pick up my Post-Its every day and put them in a central location with my laptop. Unfortunately, sometimes some of them get buried under other stuff and my husband finds them first! Ha! He only seems to find really weird Post-It bits, too….
Tammy–See, this is what I need to do–ARCHIVE it after a certain period of time. It stays in my Word folder, instead. I definitely need to do some spring cleaning in my computer.
Mallory–I’m like you…I feel comforted knowing it’s nearby (in all its awfulness!)
Alex–I do that too. But *sometimes*, I’ll CTRL-X it and put it in a Word file, just in case I change my mind. Craziness! Like I’ll choose bad writing over the improved text.
H. L. Banks–You’re good to laugh! I tend to just wonder what the heck I was thinking. I need to keep my sense of humor better when I reread the bad stuff.
Laura–He told my son, “If anything strange ever happens to me, be sure to tell the police what Mama does for a living!” :)
Margot–Ha! It IS confusing! That’s why I have to practically catalog the old, crappy stuff. It has to be annotated or I’ll wonder if it was a legitimate part of some book. That could be another reason to toss bad writing.
After yesterday`s computer melt-down I am rethinking this. I think he`s right! I would like to give my computer files a good hard pruning. It would be good mental feng shui. Heck I might even lose weight. I have so many versions of crap and bits and pieces that don`t fit and why Question Mark
And while I`m at it, I`m going to find out what happened to my computer to make me lose vital punctuation stuff – I think it got reloaded with a French keyboard. gawwwwd.
I admit, a great deal of it goes in the virtual trash can. If it’s bad, it’s just bad – why would I keep it? If an idea or sub plot has to get trashed, then I’ll keep the idea in a file – but huge swathes of bad writing? Gone, gone, gone.
I delete and write over things, but I do save old drafts, but not always. The final draft of my play is actually called “The End” in my files. Ya, I think it’s good when you can just let it go, sometimes. But, other words, they might fit better in another story. Keep those tucked in a drawer of your computer.
Well, I save ´first draft´ before I begin to edit, but if I remove scenes or paragraphs before I get to that point, I just throw them away, and I agree that it can be liberating to chuck a bad scene right into the bin.
I always dislike my own stuff when I read after some time, so I throw away almost as much as I write. Sometimes I keep pieces of dialog, or sentences I like for later use.
Cold As Heaven
Jan–I like the *idea* of it, but I think I’d be scared. It would be like giving away stuff in my closets…what if I need it again? Ack!
Carol–Blogger is driving me batty! Glad your site is back up!
Mary–Maybe I can print a copy and toss it and secretly save one, too? :)
Terry –Ha! That’s a good way of putting it…it IS sort of like a lost earring.
Elspeth–It sounds like it works out well for you…hmm. I’m still thinking about it.
Dorte–It does sound really appealing!
Cold As Heaven–That sounds like typical writer insecurity to me. I can read my stuff that’s been published even, and I feel the same way.
Some chunks I delete, other chunks I toss into a cut bits file for the story. (each story has its own, so they don’t get confused) It depends what it was. If it’s something I’m radically changing, I’ll save a copy in case I decide to go back to the old way. (been very relieved I did that on a few occasions) but if it’s something I’d found a better way to say, then I get rid of it. When I finish any of my stories, I’ll probably clean out all the excess garbage it produced along the way.