A lot of beginning writers struggle with basic writing concepts, including…beginning. Should we write a premise first? Flesh out our characters? Describe all our settings? Do we need to know the plot from A to Z? Should we write our last scene first? How do we get that first draft down?
In an excerpt from his recent book posted on Lit Hub, Matt Bell says just write. Bell advises writers to strive for an organic, playful routine, and calls this the “exploratory draft.”
“In the earliest days of drafting, I’m often working in fragments of language and disconnected images, partial scenes and half conversations and unordered events,” he says. “Why indulge in such chaos? Because what I’m trying to do in the first draft is to discover the book I’m writing by writing the book.”
Bell has found that too much planning can hem in his imagination and block opportunities for discovery and surprise. “Rather than dutifully following an outline, I want to be guided by what appears on the page as I write, by the emerging desires of characters and the dramatic demands of drafted scenes as well as by the acoustics of my sentences and the possibilities of the narrator’s voice,” he explains.
When he wrote his novel Scrapper, Bell knew his protagonist was involved in the illegal metal scrapping industry didn’t know his name right away. In time, he learned what his character wanted and feared, and learned about him as he wandered through Detroit.
So, how does this work in practice? You can start with a general outline, if you want, but don’t let that hem you in. Don’t worry about figuring out your entire story before you start writing. Let things come to you. “Listen to the pages you’re accumulating: as you play on, writing your story, sooner or later the pages begin to play back,” Bell writes. “That’s the moment a draft comes to life, if you’ll give it room to breathe.”
Write every day or at least five days a week. Set an achievable daily goal: 500 words at a minimum. Be adaptable; some weeks you may only write 100 words per day and some you may write 1,000. “One word at a time—it’s all you have to do,” Bell says. “It’s more than enough.”
