The First Pancake Just Has to Exist
Toughing through the pain of ugly early drafts
From the How to Have Written podcast:
Q: I have a story I’ve been meaning to start writing. The problem is that every time I do, it feels all wrong — nothing like I want it to be. So I psych myself out. How do I get past this?”
— Gabón in Star City, Utah
That’s a really good question, and it actually fits perfectly with this episode. It’s like the first pancake you make at home. The first one almost never comes out right. Maybe you don’t have the pan at the right temperature, or the batter’s not quite there. There’s always something you need to adjust before you get to the second and third pancakes. That’s exactly how creative work is, and it’s exactly how this podcast is for me right now. For example, I’m almost certain I’m not going to be happy with this episode. It’s my first one, and I’m not super comfortable in front of the camera. I tend to stutter, or I speak in a halted manner when I’m nervous. But I know this first episode has to exist so I can get to the next one. You can’t skip right to the second or third pancake, and you can’t skip ahead in the creative process to a point where you already know what you’re doing.
For any project, no matter how well you think you know it in your head, once you get to the point where you have to physically manifest it in the world — transforming it from an idea to actual words on a screen or a page — it almost always disappoints. That goes for every level of writer. Like I said, I’ve been writing for a long time, and I never write a first page that ends up being the first page of the story. I always have to go back and fix it, but you’ve got to start somewhere. As much as I’m going to be unhappy with the end result of this episode, I know it’s got to exist so I can move on to the next.
Your story, Gabón, is the same way. You have an idea in your head that you want to get out, but when you try, it doesn’t look the way it does in your mind. Ira Glass has a great piece of advice for writers: he says there’s a gap between what you want to do and what you can do. Most of us who want to be writers — or who are returning to writing — have a good sense of taste and know what makes a good story. But there’s often a gap between what you know is good and what you’re able to create, and the only way to close that gap is to keep doing it.
Here’s another example. I’ve been working on this one novel for a couple of years. I have a bunch of different projects in different stages, but this one has been a struggle. I kept rewriting the first chapter, trying to find the tone that matches the story in my head. But the problem is, I don’t know the characters yet, I don’t know the setting yet. Even though I have an idea of the story, I still don’t know the particulars, so I can’t be comfortable with that first chapter until I get far enough into the story to know the characters and the setting. It’s all a grind, sentence by sentence, because I’m still getting to know these elements. It’s a bit of a catch-22: I can’t feel comfortable writing because I don’t know the characters, but I can’t know the characters until I get farther into the story.
I’ve made it far enough now that I’m past the first chapter, and even though I’m still not entirely comfortable with everything, I feel better. When I go back to rewrite that first chapter, it’ll be after I’ve finished the story, and I’ll know the characters and setting so much better. At that point, I won’t be making random guesses about dialogue or character actions because I’ll have a real sense of them. I still don’t like writing bad drafts, and it can be discouraging, but even if you don’t plan to quit, that frustration can make it hard to pick it back up.
So, Gabón, I’m talking to you, but I’m also talking to myself. You have to start somewhere. In future episodes, I’ll share some ideas for how to start a story more smoothly, but for now, anything you can write, no matter how small or how off it feels, is good. The first pancake only has to exist. Its only job is to exist, so you can edit it later. Because you can edit bad writing, but you can’t edit nothing. You have to get something down so you can manipulate it and shape it here in the physical world.
