A Glorious Mess
By Victoria Fortune
The term “shitty first draft” is commonly used by writers to relieve the pressure of drafting. It’s a reminder that writing is a process and that no one (virtually) produces a masterpiece on the first pass. I embraced the term until I took a workshop with Ann Hood, director of the Newport MFA, prolific author and revision guru, who considers it disrespectful to the writing process. No one should ever sit down with the intent to write shit, she pointed out, so why call it that? She prefers the term “a glorious mess.”
The workshop with Ann was my final one in the MFA program. I’d been so focused on completing my thesis that I’d overlooked that I had to submit 15-20 pages for the workshop. Without time to consider it, I submitted the most recent chapter I’d written, a first draft of a critical scene in my book that I was struggling with. The moment I hit send, I regretted it. Here was my chance to get feedback directly from the revision guru herself, and I turned in a shitty first draft. I immediately began to anticipate the criticism I would receive.
In considering how to present my embarrassing submission to Ann and the other writers in the workshop, I came up with an analogy that helped me see my process in a new light. Drawing on my theater experience, I explained that my first drafts often feel like the first night of blocking a scene in a play. I know the basic script—the main characters, what will happen in the scene, etc.—but I need to work out the logistics: What will the set pieces look like? How will the characters move on and off stage? How will they interact with the sets and props and each other? It takes many revisions, just as it takes many rehearsals, to develop all the elements necessary to achieve the desired effect. Understanding how I work has given me more confidence and patience to develop scenes, and to know when they are ready for feedback. The scene I submitted for Ann’s workshop was far from ready to share. I apologized to Ann and the group for making them sit through a first night of blocking.
Ann acknowledged that first drafts typically are a mess, but they should still have something glorious about them, or at least glimmers of gloriousness. Referring to a first draft as “shitty” offers the freedom to create without pressure, but it also lowers expectations and gives license to write lazily. It’s only a first draft, you tell yourself; just get something down and clean it up later. Sometimes on the hardest days, when you have to produce pages, that’s all you can do; but when it becomes the default approach, you end up polishing a lot of turds.
It should come as no surprise to a writer that words matter. We spend so much time laboring over just the right words to use in our writing, why shouldn’t we be as careful with the words we use about our writing? I didn’t consider that thinking of my first drafts as “shitty” might contribute to making them so. Thinking of them as “a glorious mess,” has led to an adjustment in my mindset. My first drafts are still a mess, but I approach them with more intention, aim for quality over quantity, and strive for glimmers of gloriousness to build upon in revision.
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