IWSG: What 'Abandoning' the First Draft Can Do For You

 It’s the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions.

IWSG Question of the Month

The IWSG question for this month is: "For how long do you shelve your first draft before reading it and re-drafting? Is this dependent on your writing experience and the number of stories/books under your belt?" 

I don't have a precise amount of time that I shelve, or in my case file, the first draft to a story that I write. However, when I file a draft in a folder that I keep first drafts of fiction in, the time that it sits in there often averages from four to six months. I've set up my own rule to let a first draft sit in my filing cabinet for at least two weeks if it's a short story. If it's a longer work, which I seldom write, I'll let it sit for longer, at least about two months. Regardless of word-count, the longer I let a first draft sit "locked" away like buried treasure the better. That's because it estranges itself from me and so when I finally take it out to read and re-draft it I'll have a more objective view of it. So I try to "abandon" and forget about it for as long as possible. 

When I'm ready to redraft a new or newer story, I'll take out the folder of first drafts, and go to the newest story. I'll glance over the first page and if it reads like if it were written by someone other than myself, then I'll start reading and redrafting it. It won't totally look estranged or unfamiliar. Most of us know our own writing style and mannerisms so well that even at the first draft level we can recognise it after having ignored for several weeks. However, if the first draft of a story of mine looks in the slightest like it could have been written by someone else, I know it's time to start revising. Steven King says in his memoir, "On Writing", that “if it looks like an alien relic bought at a junk-shop or yard sale where you can hardly remember stopping, you’re ready” to revise it.

 Is letting my first draft sit for so long dependent on the number of stories under my belt? It depends on what project I'm writing the story for and the deadline I set for it. A lot of times when I write the first draft to a story I don't have a deadline for a book project set up yet. So, I guess you can say setting the first draft aside isn't dependent in that case. However, the current draft of a story that I just started writing a couple days ago may have to sit in the filing cabinet for only two or three weeks instead of four to six months. It's one that I'm writing it for my upcoming short story collection that I'm planning to release toward the end of summer.  

So, again, my rule of thumb is that I leave a first draft to sit out of view for at least two weeks even though it will often end up sitting for four to six months. But the longer it sits, the more objective of a view I have of it when I revise it. So, how long do you let your first story draft sit before reading and re-drafting it?

This month's IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: J Lenni Dorner, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, Lee Lowery, and Rachna Chhabria! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .