Words are never wasted
A positive spin on discarding thousands of words
Every writer is different, at every stage of the process. In drafting, some work towards polished writing, cutting down on later editing. Some write skimpy drafts, pushing through the ideas, jotting down notes to expand sections later. And others write long, flowing onto the page in the knowledge that an edit will mean cutting.
I’m in the latter camp. I write long. In my first draft I’ll over-explain. I’ll include details I need to know but the reader doesn’t. I also tend to repeat myself.
I’ve come to accept this. When I edit, word-count shrinks. Sometimes it’s a matter of tightening phrases. Sometimes paragraphs and whole sections will be consigned to the digital waste-basket.
And, sometimes, the cull is more drastic.
I recently took a break from working on my current work-in-progress (the first Chronicles of Seraph book) and revisited the larger space-opera story, the one that might be finished at some point in the future. I considered the overarching series, and I saw issues with what I had so far.
The story involves intertwining story-arcs. In this first book, there are three main ones, and in my first draft each is around 50,000 words. Effectively, this book will be three short, entwined novels.
And I realised that two of those arcs no longer worked. The third is okay as far as story goes (the writing itself still needs work), but the other two need to be re-planned and re-written.
All those words — roughly 100,000 — need to be removed. The time and mental effort in producing them, all for nothing. A waste, right?
No.
Words written are never a waste. I firmly believe that. In this case, I have two arguments to support that statement.
There’s a famous Thomas Edison quote — ‘I have not failed. I’ve just found 100,000 ways that don’t work.’
In my case, I have not failed in this draft. I’ve just found 100,000 words that don’t fit the overarching story. But those words were more than simply ‘words that didn’t work’.
It’s common to place writers in two camps. There are ‘plotters’, who know every detail about their story before they approach the first draft, and there are ‘pantsers’ (’discovery writers’) who start from an idea and write, developing the story as they go. But these are extreme ends of a spectrum. While writers tend to lean one way or the other, most of us sit somewhere in the middle.
I plan my books. But I don’t know everything until I start writing. Drafting helps me understand my story and my characters. So while those words are gone, while the story-arcs they form are no longer appropriate, in writing them I’ve learnt a great deal — about my characters, about the settings, about the political and social constructs within the story universe. Writing those words has embedded me deeper in the overarching story.
Which means, when I come to re-plan and re-draft, I’ll know more.
Writing that first draft has been preparation. Without the ‘failure’ of those words, I wouldn’t be able to progress.
Which brings me to the second reason those words are not ‘wasted’.
Writing is a craft. Like any craft, it takes effort. To improve, you have to put in the work. That means practice.
How do you practice writing? You can read books on the craft. You can watch in-line courses and presentations. You can study stories in print and on screen. But that only gives you knowledge. To improve, that knowledge needs to be implemented.
And that means writing.
There’s a theory, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell, that to become a master takes ten thousand hours of dedicated practice. If that is in any way true (and while the exact time is up for debate, the general idea holds), then any intentional writing is a step towards mastery.
Seen in this light, those 100,000 discarded words are training. They’re practice. The hours I spent on them hours I’ve put towards achieving mastery. I’m not there yet — I’m nowhere near, and even after the thousand hours I know there will be more to learn, that true mastery isn’t a destination but a continual mindset — but I’m closer for those ‘wasted’ words.
Words are never wasted. Those words I’m cutting from this book are training. They’re practice in developing my craft. They’re a way for me to discover more about the story I’m trying to tell.
They’re the basis of what is to come.