We Think in Drafts

Every summer for most of my life, my father’s side of the family held their reunions at a lake cabin in New Hampshire owned by his first cousin. I’ve always called this beloved matriarch my “aunt.”

Her cabin had a long wooden picnic table that sat twelve-plus easily. One had to yell to join conversations at the opposite end, as there were discussions all around it—and this was only one side of a screened-in porch so endless it turned corners.

At the quieter end, cousins opened newspapers or paperbacks (or in the later years, Kindles) under reading lamps, within a collection of Adirondack chairs and lounges. It offered the perfect space for everyone to relax and reconnect.

One reunion, during the inevitable conversation about the book titles everyone had in hand, my aunt revealed she started novels by reading their final pages. She wanted to enjoy the story without the anxiety of not knowing the outcome. The tension was too much for her.

This surprised me back then because I preferred to make that tension last. When I enjoyed a book, the anticipation was half the fun. However, as I’ve gotten older, and experienced more of life, I know I too have put a book aside or turned off a movie when the truth felt too heavy on a hard day.

Research shows spoilers don’t spoil stories as much as we expect. We rewatch and reread narratives and still thrill at their drama. A lede paragraph may reveal an article’s main point, but we still require the entire article to convince us.

The journeys we take in a piece of writing—and in life—mean as much as their points. I discuss headlines and spoilers further in the fourth week of my writing course.

Since I published the course in workbook form, students have asked whether to read the text in advance of taking the course. Of course I want people to buy my book, but despite the new spoiler research and the anxiety of waiting for the ending, I don’t want my students to read ahead. It’s an important distinction because of the unconventional way I teach.

I leave every one of my assignments open to interpretation. I want the class to acquire specific lessons from each task, but the freedom to be creative and varied is the guiding principle behind all of them.

To reinforce the idea, assignments are due before I release my corresponding lecture and readings. In the structure of the workbook too, I give readers the steps first and encourage them to experiment before reading the next chapters. Once the experiments are done, the class finds instruction and inspiration in one another’s rule-breaking and tradition-adhering choices.

The assignments become personal inquiries that inform second drafts. The second drafts differ from the first drafts in both format and goals based on the individual student. The students develop many drafts and become comfortable with writing that’s preliminary and disposable.

I call this technique “Draft Thinking” in response to the current vogue of Design Thinking—because while design is an inspiring and inventive way to look at humanity and its behaviors, nothing expresses human thought, nuance, and potential like language and writing and multiple drafts.

The writing process should always precede and lead design. A picture is worth a thousand words and those words count.

I want students to respect their own risky and messy—but essential—imaginative choices, which most art classes and ideation systems still don’t do. You can teach students how to paint like the Impressionists, but it’s Van Gogh’s decisions and struggles to paint in new ways in each new painting that made him a great communicator.

I know I teach differently simply because of the reactions I get. From the beginning, students have told me, “I’ve never been taught this way before.” For some, it’s too much work, too intimidating, or “a joke, right?” Most of them love it.

So in the case of Draft Thinking, spoilers do matter.

My feedback or any direction can give students an easy way out if they read ahead. When students believe there’s a right answer and an A+ next to it, they avoid the tension my aunt does when she reads the denouement of a mystery. They give themselves the dangerous idea that there are no tensions and mysteries left in the world, or that they should hide from them and the anxiety they create.

So if you buy my workbook, I recommend you don’t just read the words, but interact with the course, and draft your own unique experiments to get all of the benefits.

Here’s how my “Draft Thinking Classroom” works:

• Students complete writing/thinking experiments alone before any lecture or feedback.
• Students rewrite these assignments toward new unique goals after the lecture and feedback.
• Students discusses previous week’s first drafts while preparing next week’s first drafts.
• Classroom values process, interpretation, improvisation, feedback, and struggle.
• Classroom encourages starting, agency, drafts, creativity, mistakes, and perseverance.