I’m currently writing a chapter I know I will not include in the final manuscript of the book I’m working on.
I actually had a sneaking suspicion that the chapter I’m writing wasn’t the right next step in the book before I started it. My current project is a romantic comedy (I know. Big shift from serial killers and dystopian thrillers). One of my key goals is for the story to move quickly, to never linger in a place too long.
Within a few paragraphs of the chapter, I was even more convinced that it was not where the story needed to go. At that point, I had two options.
Abandon the paragraphs, cast them into the fire, and move forward in an efficient and productive way.
Spend the next three weeks pouring my heart into character development, setting, dialogue, and details that I know will find itself on the chopping block.
I chose the second of the two and figured I’d share my reasoning for the choice.
You don’t know till you know
The first reason I chose to keep writing the chapter I am still convinced I will cut is that I simply didn’t know I would cut it until I’d seen enough of it to really know (if you know what I mean.) It’s happened before. I’ve written something I think is total garbage, or suspect will be total garbage, and miraculously its not.
Maybe I’d strike gold. Maybe I’d find that ever elusive inspiration. Maybe my gut was wrong. Or maybe I was right, but needed proof. Writing is an excavation of the unknown, so I never want to come with the attitude of arrogance that I will know exactly where a story should go every time.
The truth is, sometimes with writing, you have to write a few wrong chapters before you can write the right one.
The first draft is a process
Stephen King, in his book On Writing, talks about how the first draft should be written with the door shut. It’s not for other people’s eyes. It’s not supposed to be right, or complete.
Especially when writing a longer piece with multiple characters, the first draft is as much process and testing as it is getting to the end of the book. I’m still getting to know the characters, figuring out where they are from, what they like and don’t like. I haven’t spent enough time with them to truly know what needs to be shared in the final draft.
This is probably the biggest reason I have continued to write a chapter I know I won’t use. It is helping me get to know the characters. I now know where they live, what their childhood was like, what other people matter in their life. I’ve practiced the narration voice. I’ve spent more time in the world they inhabit.
The best stories always have more story beneath the surface, implicit histories and depth that is felt more than known. So writing characters in scenarios of any type is bound to be helpful in the long run.
A lot can happen in editing
I use a program called Scrivener to write, which makes it easy to move sections around in a manuscript. I can even save things I may not use outside the manuscript folder and easily access them later if I change my mind.
That means that even if this chapter I’m writing isn’t used as is, there is a good chance some of the sections or dialogue are used elsewhere.
Allowing myself the space this early on in a manuscript to write a chapter I won’t use will no doubt help me write other sections later.
I’d love to know if I’m alone or not. Would you write a chapter you quickly decide you wouldn’t use? Or would you stop and move on?
I not only keep a file of any large chunk of manuscript I may cut, I even keep sentences and paragraphs that don't make the final cut. I have a junk file like that for every book I've written. Although I've never done anything with those files, I need them there as I write just to know I didn't throw any creativity away. Just knowing it's there--even if it's never referred to again--plays a calming role in me as a writer.
In my early days as a writer, computer software wasn't very sophisticated. I once wrote a tight chapter in one day. I knew it was good. I knew that although I would do some massaging of words when I revisited it the nest day, I knew I was going to like what I saw. My wife was taking me out to dinner to celebrate having such a productive day. I shut off the computer, only then to realize that I had not saved that file. This was before it automatically saved what you had. I was literally sick that night; no appetite. I came home from dinner, got back on my computer, started with a blank screen and did my best to recapture from memory what I had written. I SAVED that file several times throughout that writing and when I finally finished the chapter hit "save," the sun was just peeking over the horizon. That never happened to me again. Bottom line, I don't nuke anything I've written, regardless if it never ends up with a cover around it. You just never know.