7 TIPS FOR WRITING FIRST DRAFTS

This guest post is by Dr. Kim Foster who is a practising physician, a published author, and a mom. She’s also an active health blogger.

Just in time for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) I thought I’d do a post about how to write a first draft.

Because let’s face it, first drafts are hard.

It’s no secret, it’s not my favorite part of the process. I love the outlining / dreaming / planning stages, and I love the revising / shaping / polishing stages. The first draft stage? Not so much.

But it’s okay. It has to get done. Here are my seven tips for conquering that first draft.

1. Carve out the time.

Seems obvious, right? If you want to write a novel, you’re going to have to find the time in your schedule…somewhere. It just won’t get done otherwise. The world is filled with people who dream of writing a novel, someday, when they find the time. Don’t be one of those people.

We all have time challenges, and the solution will be different for everyone.

That said, I have lots of thoughts on how to find the time to write. It’s something I have wrestled with, and found many solutions for (and continue to find solutions for, in this ever-changing life).

During my blog tour a few months ago I wrote a guest post on how to find the time to write. If you’re struggling with this issue, start there.

2. Forget about quality, just get it done.

To get your first draft finished, you simply have to write. You have to get it down. Why? Because, as Nora Roberts wisely said, “You can’t edit a blank page.”

My first drafts are absolutely horrible. They’re barely literate, filled with little notes and reminders to myself—stuff I know I’ll tackle in subsequent drafts (like: “describe sights and smells of the market here…”). I do that because speed is important to me in a first draft. I think there’s a certain momentum you need to achieve when writing a first draft, because it’s so easy to get sidetracked and distracted. Writing a first draft is a whole lot harder than, say, binge watching Game of Thrones.

So first drafts should be pretty bad. I’m not alone in thinking this.

“The first draft of anything is shit.” -Ernest Hemingway

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” -Anne Lamott

Cut yourself some slack and just get those words down. You will have plenty of time to rewrite and hack it apart and flesh out the sensory descriptions of markets…but that will come later. First, just get the story down.

3. Don’t worry about balancing the elements of fiction.

Here I’m referring to all the weaving and layering that needs to occur in a finished novel. Your polished novel needs to contain a balance of character stuff, dialogue, narrative, flashbacks, backstory…and much more.

But trying to keep all that in mind while you’re throwing down the first draft is making it harder than it needs to be.

Just keep telling the story, and worry about those things later.

If you get to a spot where you know you want a certain element—a little bit of character development, say—but you don’t want to slow down, just jot a note to yourself to flesh out that bit on a subsequent draft.

Especially if you’re a pantser, once you’ve got the first draft down, and you know how it all shakes out, you’ll be able to go back and add those elements much more effectively.

Now, it should be said that some people have the ability to do the balance thing in their first draft. And if you’re one of those people, well—go, you! My critique partner, Karma Brown (whose debut comes out in May 2015, by the way) has an amazing ability to get all those components down in her first draft. I actually don’t know how she does it.

When I went to New York this summer for Thrillerfest I listened in shock as Lee Child said “I’m a one-draft writer.”

But most writers—me included—need to weave in those layers and threads during the revision process, and that’s completely okay. Revising in layers is the approach I take, and it’s what many of us do.

4. Don’t think about pacing.

Here I’m talking about both the pacing within a scene, and the overall pacing of the story. Neither issue needs to be dealt with during the first draft. That’s because it’s something best analyzed once you’ve got the whole story down. During the first draft, don’t sweat it.

As you’re writing the first draft, you may reach a scene you can clearly envision, so your descriptions will be deeper and your dialogue more fleshed out. You may not have other scenes figured out quite so fully, so your treatment of them—on first pass—will be more cursory at this point.

You may also have a string of slow, reflective scenes back to back, and then a run of action scenes…which may not be the pace you’re going for.

That’s okay; it will all get sorted out in subsequent drafts.

During revision, you’ll be able to consider the entire structure of the book and how each scene fits in. Pacing will be different for every book, of course, depending on genre and the particulars of your story.

5. Don’t worry about voice.

I consider the first draft to be about finding the voice for the story. And I don’t mean POV. That’s different. It’s probably a good idea to decide who is telling the story before you start—but depending on how much of a pantser you are, you may not even have that figured out yet.

No, when I say “voice” I mean that difficult-to-describe quality of…the sound of the story.

Is it spare and lean, or flowery? Sarcastic? Hard-boiled? Snappy? Poetic?

I read an article somewhere that listed the things you needed to have figured out before starting to write your first draft, and voice was one of the first. My palms grew sweaty at the idea. How can you possibly have the voice determined before writing the draft? I wondered.

There are many things I know (or think I know) before writing: the main characters, the climax, the ending, key scenes. But the voice? Nope. That evolves for me as I’m writing the first draft. It comes out of character as I’m telling the story.

Plus, I think if you worry too much about having a cohesive voice before you even start, it’s going to slow you down while you’re writing that first draft. You’re going to keep stopping and wondering if your voice is consistent, you know?

Ideally, by the time you’re finished your first draft, the voice has emerged. And then, cleaning up, honing, and polishing that voice becomes a revising layer.

6. Give yourself a deadline.

I think this is a big part of the success of NaNoWriMo. Because NaNo creates a clearly defined—but do-able—timeframe. And although it’s all completely voluntary, there’s something about the accountability to the community that applies needed pressure.

Without a deadline—whether self-imposed or detailed in a book contract—writing a first draft tends to stretch on and on.

Oh, I’ll finish my book…eventually.

A deadline lights a fire. If you’re organized, a deadline means you need to meet a word quota, whether it’s a daily or weekly quota. It keeps you from straying.

So, impose a deadline. Make yourself accountable. Create a pact with a writing partner or your critique group. Join NaNo or another writing challenge. Whatever it takes.

The pressure of a deadline can mean the difference between finishing that book and being one of those eventually people.

7. Keep moving forward.

Think of your first draft as a train going in one direction only. Don’t go backwards and re-do stuff while you’re in the middle of your first draft. That’s another good way to never finish a book. If you get caught up on tweaking and polishing and thinking about things too much, and you’ll never get the book written.

Keep moving forward and get the whole story out.

Have faith that you will go back and change many things. Resist the temptation to re-read what you’ve written. You will probably be horrified by what you see (refer to point number 2, above), and nobody needs that.

Keep your confidence intact, keep your head down…and just keep pushing forward.

* * *

Dr. Kim Foster is a practising physician, a writer, and a mom. She’s also an active health blogger.

After thirteen years of stitching people’s lacerations, treating their sore throats, and checking their blood pressure, Kim recently became a very successful, published author. She has a wonderful agent, Sandy Lu of L. Perkins Agency, and a 3-book deal with Kensington Books. Kim’s first novel A Beautiful Heist was published in June, 2013, and the sequel. A Magnificent Crime was released in June, 2014. She’s hard at work on her third book.

Dr. Kim obtained her BSc in Biology in 1994 from The University of Western Ontario. She then attended medical school at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and graduated in 1997, followed by a two-year residency in family medicine. She holds an active license with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC, and is a member of the Canadian Medical Association and the College of Family Physicians of Canada.

Born and raised in Oakville, Ontario, Kim has lived in Calgary, Vancouver, and London, England. She now happily calls Victoria, British Columbia, home and lives there with her husband and their two young boys. Kim maintains two websites – www.kimfoster.com which is her author presence and www.drkimfoster.com which is her professional medical site titled Savvy Health.

Thanks so much to Kim Foster for her guest post on DyingWords.net. She’s a terrific writer and I highly recommend her books and blogs.

HOW DO YOU WANT TO DIE?

I’m thrilled to death to have Seth Godin do this guest post on DyingWords. Seth is an internationally known author, speaker, businessman, and all-around mover & shaker. He originally posted this on his own blog at www.sethgodin.com on June 13, 2013, and generously offered to share it here. Thanks Seth!

Let’s assert that you’re almost certainly not going to be the very first person to live forever. Also worth noting is that you’re probably going to die of natural causes.

The expectations we have for medical care are derived directly from marketing and popular culture. Marcus Welby and a host of medical shows taught us about the heroic doctor, and more than that, about the power of technology and intervention to reliably deliver a cure.

It’s not a conspiracy — it’s just the result of many industries that all profit from the herculean effort and expense designed to extend human life, sometimes at great personal cost.

Hence the question: Do you want to choose whether or not you will be a profit center in the ever scaling medical-industrial complex? One percent of the population accounts for 30% of all health care expenditures, and half of those people are elderly.

Most of that care is designed to prolong life, regardless of the cost, the pain, or the impact on the family. A lot of doctors are uncomfortable with this, but they need you to speak up and make a choice (in advance) about what you’d like. Some people want the full treatment, intervention at all costs.

If that’s your choice, go for it. But be clear, in writing, that you’d like to spare no expense and invest in every procedure, even if it’s pointless and painful. Don’t be selfish and let someone else have to guess.

On the other hand, you have the right to speak up, and stand up, and clearly state if you’d prefer the alternative. Many people prefer a quiet dignity that spares them, and their family, pain and trauma. But you have to do it now, because later is too late.

The web makes it easy to generate and sign a simple generic form. Or even better, go find the forms by state or province. If those pages are down, try a search “health care proxy” and the name of your state or province. I suggest http://mydirectives.com and consider the “Five Wishes” at http://www.agingwithdignity.org/ .)

There are two critical components: assigning an individual to be your health care proxy, and then telling that proxy, in writing, what you’d like done (and not done) to you when the time comes.

If you’ve ever shared a post of mine, I hope you’ll share this one. If every person who reads this sits down with her family and talks this through (and then tells a few friends), we’ll make a magnificent dent in the cultural expectation of what happens last.

It’s free. It’s not difficult. It takes five minutes. Do it today, if you can, whatever your wishes are. Don’t make the people you love guess and then live with the memory of that guessing.

Some things are more likely to happen if you plan for them. In this case, the end comes whether you plan for it or not.

Planning merely makes it better.

SETH GODIN is the author of 17 books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership, and most of all, changing everything. You might be familiar with his books Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, and Purple Cow.

In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth is the founder of squidoo.com, a fast growing, easy to use website. His blog at www.sethgodin.com (which you can find by typing “seth” into Google or click here) is one of the most popular in the world. Before his work as a writer and blogger, Seth was Vice President of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, a job he got after selling them his pioneering 1990s online startup, Yoyodyne.

In 2013, Seth was inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame, one of three chosen for this honour.

Recently, Seth once again set the book publishing on its ear by launching a series of four books via Kickstarter. The campaign reached its goal after three hours and ended up becoming the most successful book project ever done this way. His latest, The Icarus Deception, argues that we’ve been brainwashed by industrial propaganda, and pushes us to stand out, not to fit in.

Thanks so much for generously sharing your wisdom, Seth!

FORENSIC HYPNOSIS FOR MEMORY ENHANCEMENT

Forensic hypnosis is the use of hypnotherapy in the field of law enforcement. It’s often used to help witnesses recall details of events and descriptions of suspects that can’t be extracted through conventional interviewing techniques.

In my police career, I’ve been involved in a number of cases where we used hypnotic memory enhancement. Several had amazing success.

I’ve always been fascinated with how the human mind works. I think that modern medicine and psychiatry are just beginning to understand the complexity of how consciousness works. Hypnosis is a tool to assist in entering a person’s subconscious and unlocking the vault where memory is stored. Its ‘magic’ is the ability to alter the subject’s state of consciousness which is what Shamanism is all about. But that’s for another discussion.

The best hypnotherapist I’ve had the pleasure to work with is Dr. Lee Pulos of Vancouver, BC, Canada. Here’s how he explains it.

Doctor Lee Pulos

“Hypnosis is a natural state of consciousness that we drift in and out of quite regularly. For example, while driving along a highway and then suddenly discovering that you ‘lost’ several miles without being aware of it. This can also happen during reading when you may notice that you have ‘read’ a chapter or two without being mindful of the content. Hypnosis is basically a technique for focusing consciousness by entering a deep state of absorption. It allows you to shift from your outer to inner awareness and tap deeper levels of consciousness, so that we can re-educate and reprogram the subconscious with empowering suggestions or beliefs.”

The word “hypnosis” comes from the name of a Greek god Hypnos, who presided over sleep. In the late1700s, Anton Mesmer brought the technique into popular consciousness in Europe and in 1843 Scottish physician James Braid coined the term, “hypnotism,” for the experience that was passing in many circles as “animal magnetism.”

Hypnosis places a person in a trance state that can resemble sleep, but is instead an altered state of consciousness more akin to a lucid dream. Often people in a trance are quite alert, but focused in a way that differs from their normal conscious state. Contrary to popular notions, subjects in a light trance may be aware of everything that is going on.

I’ve seen a rough and tough biker-witness under hypnosis who was instructed to play ‘patty-cake’ by clapping his hands on his knees. He couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that he couldn’t control his hands, though he seemed perfectly conscious in a way that ought to have enabled him to resist the instruction. His hands changed to patting his head and stomach at the hypnotist’s instruction. They looked at each other the whole time and even had a conversation with his hands patting about.

The trance-state, which has its own ebb and flow, is the result of a trusting and cooperative process between the subject and the hypnotist. It’s not one person controlling another and there’s no way the hypnotist can make the subject do something they would not do while they’re in a normal state, such as an illegal or immoral act.

“Hypnosis,” says Kevin McConkey, President of the Australian Psychological Society and co-author of Hypnosis, Memory, and Behavior in Criminal Investigation, “is essentially a phenomenon that reflects genuinely experienced alterations of reality in response to suggestions administered by a hypnotist.” The subject’s testimony is what confirms the trance, although susceptibility varies among individuals. Those who are highly suggestive will behave as if going through truly significant cognitive alterations.

Hypnosis involves concentration that is heightened to the point where one can recall details that seemed to elude that same person in a conscious state. That’s why it appears to be a powerful forensic tool for criminal investigation, although some researchers challenge the notion that hypnosis leads to significant increases in memory.

There are two basic purposes for using forensic hypnosis. The most common is to induce relaxation when anxiety and stress may be obstructing a witness’ ability to recall as much information as possible. The second use occurs when retrieval of information from witnesses cannot be acquired through any other means.

The very first court case to involve forensic hypnosis was Cornell v. Superior Court of San Diego in 1959. Although forensic hypnosis is mostly used by prosecutors, in this particular court case, it was the defense that used hypnosis as an aid in preparing its strategy. Since then, many famous cases have used hypnosis as an aid, including the Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, and Sam Sheperd.

Currently no overriding judgment has yet been handed down regarding admissibility of evidence achieved through forensic hypnosis and the use of such evidence varies from one jurisdiction to the next. Adding to the reliability problem is that solid evidence can be devalued as a result of unprofessional circumstances surrounding the obtaining of evidence through hypnosis.

I remember one judge rejecting evidence from a witness who had been subject to hypnotic recall stating “There’s nothing more unreliable than an eyewitness, never mind one who is tainted by hocus-pocus.” One the other hand, I recall another judge who was fascinated by the process and readily accepted the witness evidence, particularly because the information obtained under hypnosis was corroborated by other facts. As in all types of evidence, the key is reliability.

In order to ensure that solid forensic hypnosis used in the investigation of a crime is not devalued, it’s become standard and vital operating procedure that all hypnosis sessions are recorded on video and audio and that the session is witnessed by independent observers. In addition, to further strengthen the case, the hypnosis must be performed by a trained forensic hypnotist.

Before a forensic hypnotist is allowed to begin a session, one very important condition must be met. The subject must be assured that during the hypnotic session no attempt shall be made to elicit any information that is not directly relevant to the investigation. In addition, the forensic hypnotist must also assure the subject that no information retrieved will lead to self-incrimination.

Critics of forensic hypnotism center their attacks on the accuracy and reliability of the evidence that’s obtained. The concern is that suggestion(s) implanted during hypnotism may create false memories through the use of leading questions.

One thing that a forensic hypnotist cannot do, and is never called to do, is to help a suspect confess to a crime. Not only is this impossible, but any confession arrived at through hypnosis would never be admissible in court.

Here’s a true case that I investigated where forensic hypnosis for memory enhancement led to a break-through in solving the crime. It was conducted by Dr. Lee Pulos.

In April, 1986, a lady was alone in her cabin on a remote gold claim in northern British Columbia. A masked man with a hand gun appeared at her door demanding that she hand over her gold stash. She refused so he proceeded to blindfold and hog-tie her, then began torturing her by burning her hands and ribs with a red-hot knife heated on her wood stove.

Now this lady was one tough old bird, as you’d expect a gold miner to be. She later stated that she’d worked so hard to build her gold stash that she’d ‘rather die than turn it over to this asshole.’ Realizing that his interrogation technique was going nowhere, the bad guy quit in frustration, set the cabin on fire with her still tied and blindfolded, and left her to die. She was able to wiggle over and boot the door, then crawled outside where she laid in excruciating pain on the snow in sub-zero temperature until her husband returned from town and found her.

Because this was such a horrific crime, the Mounties pulled out all stops. We flew her to Vancouver to undergo hypnosis with Lee Pulos. He was able to extract two things that led to solving the case. One was that she recalled that the bad guy was using a two-way radio or ‘communicator’ as she called it. The second was that he kept using the term for the gold stash as being ‘squirreled away’.

Now being positive that an accomplice was involved, we focused the investigation on a neighbor who’d been involved with a gold-claim boundary dispute. We identified the suspect as a Hells Angels connection who’d been hired by the neighbour so we ran a wiretap which caught him using the term ‘squirreled away’. This led to an elaborate sting being set-up that resulted in his confession to an undercover agent. He was convicted and got twenty years.

Like I said, I’ve always been fascinated with how the human mind works. One thing I’m positive about – there’s way more to consciousness than modern medicine and psychiatry know – except for the Shamans. But that’s for another discussion.