“Emerging writers should get ‘working through it’ tattooed on their arms, so they can see it when they’re typing.” (SJ Finn)

On Sunday I was the host of Working through it: first drafts, rewrites, fact checking, punctuation woes and working with editors, a panel at the Emerging Writers Festival. It featured Esther Anatolitis, David Blumenstein, Neil Boyack and SJ Finn, four great writers who reflected on their approach to writing from personal, professional and artistic perspectives. I enjoyed the session. The Yarra room at Melbourne Town Hall was packed by the end, and I think the writers provided a good opportunity for the audience to learn more about the challenges and opportunities of writing for publication.

My favourite parts were about:

• structure
• ‘organic’ flows in writing
• the value of redrafting

Anatolitis’ mind maps and comments about advocacy, artistic and critique pieces and the trajectory of the publication process helped to demonstrate how structure can be really useful for writers to create and give shape to content. Later, Boyack raised an interesting point about writing for a market as opposed to creating a market for your work – which he noted is normally a much longer road. He was speaking in reference to his short stories, powerful pieces that don’t shy away from the often bleak and decaying lives of their characters. It made me think about how structure itself can limit the scope and imagination of a piece, even though it provides a great skeleton to flesh out ideas, and a road map for publishing in spaces with certain conventions, such as features and columns in newspapers and magazines.

I’ve heard debate about structure in academic and practical contexts, but it was refreshing for me to see it played out with different forms of writing. It seems structure is a constant theme in discussion about writing. At the same time, I think this highlights the need for the anarchic, spontaneous and unexpected. I switch between carefully planned outlines and rushes of improvised prose when I’m writing, but I’m still trying to figure out why my non-fiction pieces tend to develop structure more quickly than my fictional work.

Finn spoke about her experience writing her great debut novel, This Too Shall Pass, and redrafting the opening 300 times. It reinforced the importance of redrafting and the sheer amount of work that goes into a piece before its ready for publication. It’s a necessary part of the writing life, which Finn also noted, but in a far more entertaining way:

“emerging writers should get ‘working through it’ tattooed on their arms, so they can see it when they’re typing.” (via @lou1sb)

Blumenstein reflected on early drafts of his web comic Showman? The Brett Braddock Adventures, and we could see in his illustrations (thanks to a handy use of slides) where he changed his work to improve the story. The animator, story board artist and “reluctant organiser of comics-related events around Australia” had an easy going, funny rapport with the audience, and it reinforced for me that humour in the writing process often comes from improvisation and play rather than calculated planning. It also seems that redrafting can be enjoyed for its moments of revelation and new angles to existing material, and is not just a hard slog of corrections and re-writes. Of course, as David argues, you also just have to knock stories out and hold off from being a perfectionist:

“I didn’t set out thinking I’d make it as good as possible, I just set out to get it done.” (via @lou1sb)

I look forward to reading more from these writers and checking out other events at the festival.

Image by Emerging Writers Festival