Finding Meaning As You Go

Pixar #3:

Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

This is the “stories are not written, they are re-written” notion, and I agree. The first draft is hauling the block of marble up from the quarry. The “heavy lifting.” The next drafts are chipping away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.

From time to time an early draft of some famous book or story is discovered. If I admire the finished work, I enjoy looking at the early draft. What changes did the author go through? How and why did they make them?

And…there are always critics and readers who are scandalized that anyone would look at the early drafts. I often get the sense that these people, deep inside, think that creativity, RREAL creativity comes out perfect the first time. Anything less is just “craft” or worse, “hack work.”

This attitude is a perfect recipe for writer’s block. You MUST give yourself permission to fail, be sloppy, head off in the wrong direction for a bit. Writers afraid of this become those who cannot finish their novels, or fear to send off stories even after working on them for months. It is pitiable.

Start, of course, with short stories. Write the whole thing, put it away for a week, then come back. Try to see what your unconscious mind was up to. What theme and counter-theme can you detect? Can you strengthen it, so that every character and event reinforces or challenges…