I suppose it could well be argued that a significant portion of a typical person’s existence is, when viewed through the lens of the present moment, a little bit pointless and mundane. I don’t mean this in a nihilistic or critical sense of the word. I just mean when viewed in the context of the here and now, much of life is spent waiting around for kettles to boil, queues to shorten, and significant events to arrive. The here and now is more often than not steeped in a quiet mundanity, a filler that only gets jettisoned from our stories when the future turns such moments into that of the past. It is only in retrospect, with the clarity of hindsight, that we trim away the fat and reflect upon the moments of genuine significance which surrounded that period.

This is a philosophy I’m pondering over as I glance at my most recent novel writing progress, and I’m noticing some similarities. I’m still slogging away at that first draft, fighting to get the overall core of my fable onto the page. The problem is, this draft feels an awful lot like the flabby, unfiltered present. It’s clogged with filler, spacing out the dramatic moments. My prose functions as a holding pattern, with characters wandering about, engaging in conversations that are not only meaningless to the plot, but mind-numbingly dull. This morning, for instance, I dedicated a thousand words to a character doing the washing up, nattering about butterflies, and watering plants. While echoes of these details are relevant to future plot points, it hardly justified an essay’s worth of words to establish them.

Writing these scenes felt a little embarrassing. This isn’t an issue exclusive to this particular novel; but a problem which has plagued every project I’ve ever undertaken, to varying degrees. It isn’t until later drafts, when hindsight kicks in, that the story begins to flow and function. The mundane moments are stripped away, creating something far more efficient and snappy.

It’s funny how harmful those flabby first drafts can be to my wellbeing. They’ve been impactful enough to make me abandon entire projects, convincing me that I’m just not up to the challenge of writing. I’d close a project, telling myself to simply read more before trying again, as if a part of me believes that first drafts shouldn’t be so bloated and mundane in areas. If I just consumed enough literature, then perhaps I could break the habit of waxing lyrical about washing plates and musing over insects.

I’ve touched upon the idea of embracing messy drafts before, especially how, in a world saturated with overly refined AI slop, raw experimentation might be the key to more interesting and unique narratives devised by imperfect minds sifting through concepts. Yet I’m starting to recognize that there’s more to a heavy-handed manuscript than just creative exploration. Perhaps it’s necessary for me to know all the intimate, mundane details of each character. The housework and butterfly chats aren’t for the reader, but for me. They allow me to better understand my characters, what makes them tick, what they do “behind the scenes,” and the subtle logic of how they get from point A to point B. My job in later drafts, then, is to shave down those transitions to maintain momentum, while preserving the internal logic of the journey.

This issue isn’t exclusive to prose-based writing. Seeing as I’ve spent many years studying cinema, I’ve noticed similar issues being mirrored in feature film. Whether it’s script treatments, shooting scripts, or early cuts; movies have a tendency to be crammed with all sorts of additional subplots, exposition dumps, and dead-end scenes that never make it into the final product. It isn’t until a spot of note-taking, test audience feedback, or ruthless editors make their way into the equation that the scrap is jettisoned.

A prime example which springs to mind is the original extended ending to James Cameron’s 1997 behemoth, Titanic. The theatrical cut’s final moments are one I consider to be a masterclass in visual storytelling. Elderly Rose’s silent release of the “Heart of the Ocean” is followed by a montage of photos confirming she lived a full life, culminating in a dreamlike reunion with Jack on the grand staircase. It conveys liberation, closure and fulfilment without a single word of dialogue provided. 

In contrast, the deleted scene originally intended to be included between the dropping of the necklace and elderly Rose sleeping in her bed is flabby, exposition-heavy and appallingly executed. During this deleted sequence, Bill Paxton’s Brock Lovett confronts Rose after he spots her with the coveted jewel. Rose manages to persuade Lovett into letting her throw away his life’s work by delivering an on-the-nose speech about the ills of searching “for treasure in the wrong places”. Despite building an entire career around discovering the long lost necklace, Rose’s ramblings convince him to let her bin the thing; a turn of events that’s as nonsensical as it is mawkish. The existence of this scene completely undermines the quiet poignancy and visual poetry of the final version; giving us a corny moment in which the symbolism and themes of those final moments are dished out in the form of an unrealistic confrontation. The comparison in this sequence is a testament to the power of editing stories, demonstrating how even our most beloved stories have weaker versions wisely left on the cutting room floor.

All of which is to say that even narratives I consider flawlessly executed are susceptible to starting out life as something awkward, sluggish, and filled with pages that merely kill time. Those earlier versions of these stories are not mistakes; they are the necessary scaffolding. The magic happens when their authors have the opportunity to step back, assess the content, and surgically determine what the audience truly needs to know. It’s all part of the process.

It is only with the arrival of tomorrow that the mundane moments of our former present are engulfed with meaning. All that time spent waiting for kettles to boil and queues to shorten is no longer simply filler. In hindsight, these moments become the quiet, connective tissue of our personal narrative, imbued with a poetry and beauty we simply could not grasp when they first played out. Capturing the spark is the function of a future draft. It is the product of a writer’s future self; looking back on the raw, unfiltered present of the initial manuscript and transforming mundanity into art. Perhaps there is beauty in those early, bloated pages after all. Their potential I can only unlock once I am able to revisit them with the wisdom of tomorrow.