Social Media and the First Draft Problem
Let me begin by apologizing to those readers who are used to coming here for fiction material. I try not to do to many of these essays/articles, and will return to my regularly scheduled material soon.
During one of his Netflix comedy specials, comedian and legendary podcaster Joe Rogan joked about L. Ron Hubbard, saying, "This motherfucker never wrote a second draft for anything!" Acccording to some of the people who knew Hubbard and became involved with his 'Dianetics' and early development of Scientology, who later disengaged with it all, this was actually pretty accurate; once he had a modest amount of success financially, Hubbard proceeded to do only the minimum amount of even line editing before insisting his titles be pushed through to market.
This was, at its time, a thoroughly unorthodox approach to being a storyteller of any sort. Nobody who took writing at all seriously would hand over a first draft and expect the thing to hold up to the rigors of critical analysis, mechanical dissection, and technical review. To this day, this still broadly holds true, though, we have seen that notion eroded since the advent of the Kindle Direct Publishing phenomenon. Nowadays, one can go to just about any online message board or Facebook Group dedicated to and assembled of indie authors who use KDP as their primary outlet, and see numerous storytellers advocating the idea of 'High Churn, High Visibility.' This boils down to the idea that it doesn't matter if you feel like your story isn't in its most polished state, it only matters that your name show up with a high quantity of titles.
Some turn to serialized efforts, putting up 5k-10k word 'installments ' and charging a dollar a piece, hoping to rope in readers early on and keep them on the line as the rest of the story is written. It works for some folks, apparently, but the actual quality of these stories always suffers.
Now, what does any of this have to do with social media? A lot, actually, and authors who utilize the tools of editing and multiple drafting could tell you that, if you'd give them the chance.
Ask an author who uses those toolsets to hand you a first draft of something they've written. Convince them you just want a preview of your own. Then, tell them you want to share it with the world; they'll be leaping on you faster than a coked up gorilla that's suddenly developed a taste for paper or whatever plastics are used in creating the flash drive their manuscript is on, and you'll maybe get to stare out of your one undamaged eye as they chew and swallow it to destroy the evidence.
This is not, by and large, a matter of self-censoring on the storyteller's part. It's a recognition, rather, that their first attempt to gather their ideas and put them down in the written word is NEVER going to be as smooth, efficient, and/or succinct as it could be. There are going to be errors of logic, clunky bits lacking good technique, and poor selections of exact phrasing. This is not hyperbole on my part, and to demonstrate that, I would invite you to ask about this mentality of the household names in modern literature- Martin, King, Barker, Gaiman, Ericsson, Rowling.
And I included that last name specifically because I know someone will cringe or object not based on the merits and skill level of her use of the craft, but because of her perceived status as someone hated in recent years for her socio-political stances and perceptions. Will I leave her in the final version of this write-up, thus risking dismissal of the rest of my valid points? Or will she remain in, because that reception stands outside of the actual context of everything else written here?
Let us now look to the social media outlets most frequently used with text- Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For most users, one of the longest-standing facets that appeals to users is the instantaneous nature of their user interface. Have an idea? Have an opinion? Want to share an observation? Tap on the keys, click 'Post', and away you go, your message now permanently and irrevocably on the Internet for all time, for all to see! Isn't that great?
Meanwhile, every author who still relies on the deep well of self-flaggelation and insecurity in their own skillset is howling inside, their lizard brains spewing rabid foam as they flail about, powerless to stop what's just happened. The moment their thoughts show up in the Feed, they recognize how unprepared those thoughts were, how terribly they read.
Even skilled authors, perhaps ESPECIALLY skilled authors, should recognize and acknowledge the horrors of and damage caused by social media's First Draft Problem. Ian Crossland frequently and accurately points out that sarcasm doesn't carry in text format; Bill Burr joked about getting a 'bad read back in court' about verbal communications being transcribed and read back without the appropriate tone or context.
Now, consider how many people end up getting in trouble for what they post on these various social media outlets, including the alt-tech options of MeWe, Gab, Minds, and until it got nuked off the face of the Internet, Parler. How many of these users are professional or semi-professional writers? How many of them are accustomed to the process of 'Outline, rough draft, edit, fine tune, second draft, edit, get third party notes and opinions, fine tune, final version'? I guarantee you, the answer to that question is less than .1% of the total userbase.
Are you catching the general point I'm trying to get at here, folks? I don't mean to condescend, but based on how the vast majority of you out there react to folks with whom you disagree or find fault and flaw in what others have to say, I find it almost necessary to check in and see if the pitchforks have been grabbed and critical thought processes shut down, or if you're thinking through what's being presented. You don't have to agree with the arguments I'm making here, but it would be appreciated if you could demonstrate an understanding of them instead of insisting that your interpretation of them bears the weight of holy writ.
Okay, enough of my projecting my own insecurities on the audience, let's get back on message.
When celebrities and cultural figureheads and leaders fuck up on social media, we get to see what people are like at their worst online. Users transmogrify like horrid little lycanthropes from everyday human beings into bloodthirsty digital pirhana people, teeth gnashing and fingetips flying over the keyboard or screen in search of that delicious victim. In one respect, I applaud them- nobody should be above reproach, and everyone deserves to be criticized or poked fun of. If we want to live in a free and genuinely equitable world, there needs to be an elimination of the concept of the sacred cow.
But at the same time, I think we all need to remember that whatever's showing up online, it's far more than likely that it's a first draft.
Think of it like this: after a night of absolute debauchery, a knock at your door wakes you up. Nothing in your brain is firing properly, you look like an absolute ghoul, someone has written their grandmother's pet name on your neck in Sharpie, and you're not sure how, but you have a second-degree burn on your hand and a mariachi band trumpeter asleep in your front hallway. You open the door, and every major news outlet has a camera aimed at you, a microphone thrusting out like a dagger, and you are asked in half a dozen voices, 'What's on your mind?'
Is it necessarily fair to hold whatever comes out of your mouth there to the same standard as your response if you had a good night's sleep, received notice days earlier that those cameras would be showing up, and gotten up on the day of with a well-rehearsed set of lines to deliver in your finest outfit, hygiene in top form for presentation?
Look, I understand the easy counter to all of this hay that I've made here. 'People don't have to post on social media without preparation first', or 'they should have thought about that before they typed anything.' Yet, aren't these apps, sites and services supposed to be there for the purpose of authentic communication? Are you a perfectly lovely person in everything you think and say and do? No, none of us are.
And less than .1% of us are writers who use the toolset of outline, draft, edit, re-draft. Perhaps if users responded less like petulant children and more like thoughtful editors, making recommendations of how better to convey an idea instead of just saying 'I can't work with you', we'd all be better off.
Then again, maybe I'm just a genre wonk who needs to quit with the non-fiction stuff and go back to telling stories.