How do you feel about grammar & punctuation? Is it the writer’s responsibility, or can it be off-shored to a paid editor?
That’s the going debate on a private Facebook writer’s group I belong to. The responses, which seem to be running fifty-fifty, are passionate in both directions.
All that grammar stuff stifles the creative urge
versus
Words and the correct use of them are an essential part of the writer’s toolbox.
I say both of those are true, and what we’re really talking about is…
The crying need for a First Draft.
- First Drafts, which I affectionately refer to as the Vomit Drafts, are where you just pour it all out without a thought for whether it makes sense or is legible.
- The First Draft is the draft that only you, the writer, see; therefore, you can spill your guts with impunity.
- In First Drafts, you can leave blanks to fill in later when you can’t come up with the words you’re looking for now.
- You can write notes to yourself in your First Draft remind you of something you want to describe but aren’t quite ready to.
- To treat the First Draft as a Final Draft in which you focus on correcting grammar, punctuation and spelling is to deny yourself…
The essence of the First Draft,
which is the freedom of discover.
Spelling is one thing but punctuation is a very personal matter for a writer. For instance, my husband would never use a semi-colon. Only colons and he used them frequently. he called it electric language.
Really helpful to me as I discover writing is a process, and a first draft is not to be confused with a final draft. Thank you, Jane!
And sometimes a first draft has a number of iterations! Especially now that we compose on the computer. Back in the day, I would have pages of drafts for article–and still have them in my filing cabinet!