ARTICLE

Crafted writing

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Some authors prefer to freewrite their first draft, getting the words down as quickly as possible, with no regard for spelling or format. Other writers spend a great deal of time crafting well-polished sentences, producing a first draft that, in some cases, may need very little further work.

Critically acclaimed Australian author Delia Falconer (The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers and In the Service of Clouds) works slowly in small fragments, adding to and polishing each section before continuing because she doesn’t like to redraft her books once they are completed. She says that sometimes one sentence or paragraph can take a week to write – but that is the time necessary for her to produce a great work of art and she probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

Donna Tartt, author of The Secret History and The Little Friend puts it this way, “The level at which I enjoy writing most is the sentence-to-sentence level. Even though I write big books, I really like constructing sentences and paragraphs and really thinking, ‘Is this exactly the right adjective I want? Is this exactly the right word?’… I write one sentence until I am happy with it… I go on to the next one and write that one until I am happy with it.”

Donna Tartt kept the world waiting ten years for her second novel, saying, “There's a level of richness that one gets if a whole decade is put into a book that is just not possible if you spend two or three years on it.” But renowned freewriter Stephen King decided at one stage to use the pseudonym Richard Bachman because readers, publishers, and critics found it nearly impossible to understand how he could churn out two or three books a year.

A good middle ground to try to reach is to develop your freewriting techniques for your notemaking, outline, and detailed synopsis, and perhaps even a very rough first draft that is little more than a plot sketch. You can then turn to your finer crafting skills to create a draft of your novel that is more a second draft, or a very polished first draft, depending on your preferences. This means you can focus on the artistry of your writing without losing the thread of your plot because it wasn’t written down.

Most writers who use a crafted approach like to plan their novel very carefully before they start the writing process. Sometimes freewriters say they can’t understand why craft writers want to do this, because freewriters enjoy the spontaneity and the surprises that their process releases. But craft writing and freewriting are more similar than many people realise. The craft writer simply does the “freewriting” process in her head, or perhaps in sketches and elaborate notes. The freewriter explores the story by writing it rather than thinking and planning it.

Donna Tartt interview with Robert Birnbaum

Delia Falconer interview with Magdalena Ball

For help with improving your craft writing skills, try The Stuff of Fiction : Advice on Craft by Douglas Bauer