Reviewing your first draft

Now you've written four fragments. Let's pull them together and see what we've got!

Here's Shakespeare's original:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth(1606)

Let's recap what we see in this, now we've been through a long teardown and rewrite process:

A soliloquy about disappointment
Four basic stages:
- Experience of the disappointment
- The end result
- Wrapped up in a metaphor
- The metaphor extended
Lots of nouns, handful of verbs and qualities
No fat in the language, very few purely grammatical words
Weak words at start of lines, every line ends with a strong noun
Some distinctive phrasing: creeps in, have lighted, is heard no more, life's but.

Let's see how our examples compare. Here's the first one:

Cars, and cars, and cars,

Line up the drive-thru from window to speaker

To the furthest corner of the neighbouring block;

And every customer now bears complaint

Against me for their order. Close, close, tiny window!

Customers are but a mouthing rabble, an appetite,

That brays and barks its orders into the mic,

And then grabs and goes. They are a beast

Made only of stomach, full of rage and greed,

Slurping everything.

It's not too bad! Sounds pseudo-Shakespearean, follows the same basic structure.

The first line seems kind of underdeveloped.

The biggest thing you might notice if you think about it is that it kind of flips the original. The original starts with a semi-abstract description—tomorrow creeping in, to the last syllable of recorded time—then anchors that to a concrete image: the player on the stage.

The example above does the opposite: describes exactly where a queue of cars are, then gets more vague with a description of beasts and appetities.

Is that a problem? Is it better or worse? You be the judge!

Here's the second example:

Everything, and everything, and everything,

Turns to dust in the corners

Of every house in every town;

And any pleasure now brings despair

To anyone who held it. Go, go, sweet object!

Life’s but a rental contract, a limited subscription,

That claims to offer ownership of the things you love

And then lets them fade away. It is a tide,

Turned against us all, heavy with time and decay,

Delivering defeat.

Some lines seem under-developed, and apart from the rental contract image, it is quite vague.

This is a basic problem with writing about such a big topic (nothing lasts forever!) as opposed to something smaller (drive-thru customers can be annoying!)—it's harder to be concrete and specific.

Here are your fragments pasted together. Note that a couple of lines are broken; you should go and delete some paragaph breaks to join them together, but otherwise don't revise your work now.

Take a look at it as a whole:

How does it compare to the original? Is it too close? Not close enough?
Does it make sense?
How does it make you feel?

Here are your fragments joined together. Fix up the broken lines and see how you feel.

Now what you have probably sounds more Shakespearean than what you would normally write, but it's probably missing a certain something.

And that certain something is probably this:

DaDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM.

So for our last activity, let's try to introduce some rhythm.

Writelike Shakespeare: Macbeth's 'Tomorrow' soliloquy

Reviewing your first draft