In this episode of The Writing Coach podcast, writing coach Kevin T. Johns argues many beginner authors struggle because our public school and high school education systems fail to teach students the revision skills, experimentation, and risk-taking necessary to create art.

The Writing Coach Episode #191 Show Notes

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The Writing Coach Episode #191 Transcript

Hello, beloved listeners. And welcome back to The Writing Coach podcast. It is your host, as always, writing coach Kevin T. Johns here.

We’re coming up on the next round of Story Plan Intensive, my four-week program, where each day I email you writer’s craft training videos, Monday to Friday. Also, on Friday, you get an inspiration, inspiring homework assignment, all of which builds up to you creating an amazing outline for your book by the end of the month. If you have not experienced the Story Plan Intensive yet, get registered now.

The other day, I was on a call with a client, and I was explaining to him some literary elements that were missing from his scene. He had some great dialogue; it was a well-plotted scene, but it was a little lean on environmental description as well as on physical movement. We were talking about how to get these elements into the scene, and he said, “I understand what you’re saying and what I need to do. But how can I do that on the first try?”

I said to him, “You don’t.”

Writing fiction involves so many layers of information and techniques that it’s almost impossible to get it all right on the first try. Writing is an iterative process.

In one of Steven Pressfield’s books, he says you’re probably going to do ten drafts of a book before it gets published. I think that’s perfectly reasonable, but people hear that they hear this idea that they’re going to have to go over their book ten times, and they think it’s insane. Even writers who I’ve worked with and who understand (or at least cognitively get that writing requires revisions), I still know that in their hearts or in the back of their minds, they’re thinking, “Yep, yep, writing a novel requires multiple revisions, for everyone else . . . but NOT for me. I’m the one who’s going get it all right on the first try.” And, of course, they then get frustrated when they don’t.

As a result, I spent a lot of time thinking about this issue, this idea that people come into writing so disconnected from the need for revisions and the importance of revisions. I think about where this comes from, this attitude of I’m going to get it all right on the first try… and I think the answer is school.

Even at a university level, most people cram their essay writing process into the afternoon, or worse yet, the evening, before it’s due. They pound it out at the last minute, and then they hand it in, and it gets marked. If they do well, they’re happy. If they do poorly on the grading, they aren’t encouraged to go back and fix it,