Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Avoid asking an engineer or some other non-writer to write a complete first draft of a document. The result will be bad, but the non-writer will love it more than himself.

There are few anguishes known to man as that experienced when a manager tells an engineer or some other professional who is not a professional writer, “This isn’t bad for a first draft, but we need some major rewrites or maybe just toss it and start from scratch.”

Professionals, who are not professional writers, pour their blood, sweat, and tears into pieces of writing. Every word is painful, but they smash their fingers through the keyboard to put the letters on the computer screen and fulfill their commitment as a professional. The result – the first draft – is as precious to them as anything they have ever produced.

Awful or beautiful (on rare occasions), the pride of ownership and the expense of the soul endear the writer of the first draft to their work. Rewrite it? Why not ask for their first-born child? Ask instead for something less treasured such as all the blood that flows through their veins.

This is the curse of the first draft: it is bad, yet it is treasured, and the writer cannot change it.

Remedies to this curse are not known; preventions, however, are. Avert the curse with one word – outline. Now the professional writers, the writers of verse and novels, can cringe and imagine scratching their teeth on a chalkboard. The other professionals and their managers can find solace.

• Outline the work
• Discuss the outline
• Change the outline
• Outline in greater detail
• Discuss the outline
• Change the outline
• Outline in greater detail
• Discuss the outline
• Change the outline

Repeat until the outline contains a topic for every paragraph to be written. Now, the blood, sweat, and tears have been shared by a group of people. The contributions of each person are slight compared to the heart and soul given in a full first draft. Things can still be changed. The world will be safe as anguish has been vanquished.

Is this description overly dramatic? Perhaps, but wait until you meet an engineer who has just seen his manager throw his first draft into the trash and ask for another try.