Writing Advice – Neil Strauss

I was listening to an old Tim Ferriss podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, recently, a guy who is well known for dissecting the essence of excellence, and he was interviewing Neil Strauss about what made him such a great writer. The whole episode is worth listening to, but this particular part about drafts, and what the purpose of each one should be stuck out particularly for me. I think it was some great advice, and could work well for other writers in the making.

The first draft is for me. It’s very common, says Strauss, for a novice writer to want to produce publishable pages on the first pass. If you do that, you’ll never get past the first chapter. Your first draft is just for you. The purpose is to get it all out of your head. You’ll write too much, and you won’t say it well, but at least everything you want to say will be out there, on pages in front of you, and not swimming around in your head.

The second draft is for your reader. Go through it again and think about what that reading experience will be like. Remove anything that’s not interesting and necessary.

The third draft is for the hater. Go through it and anticipate those criticisms, and make it hater-proof.

Published by Jordan

Thanks for stopping by! A few things about me. I've been an L.A. local for my whole life, and I spend my days working here at front desk of theOffice. My number one goal here is to fill this blog feed full of things that will motivate and inspire writers, and to give you all an occasional laugh. I'm a lover of science and technology, geek culture, and video games. If anything inspires you as a writer, I'd love to hear about it!

2 thoughts on “Writing Advice – Neil Strauss”

  1. Tan M Butler says:

    Great advice! I’m in the first draft stage and feel very aware of how poorly written some parts are but like you say it IS all about getting it out of your head and into words!

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    • Jordan says:

      Yeah! I always find it best to get all the thoughts out. If you try to make things perfect on the first draft, it’s likely it’ll never be finished 😩

      Some of your best ideas come from free flow writing too, when you’re in the moment.

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