The Truth About First Drafts
First drafts are not great quality. Some lines might be fantastic, but overall, it probably won’t be amazing. And that’s totally fine, it’s normal, it’s exactly what you want.
Our silly writer brains expect perfection on the first go for some reason?? Which makes no sense.
They’re meant to be terrible, just thoughts spewing onto paper, really. Just get the dialogue out, get the story into a tangible, clear sequence of events that’s actually a readable story, not just an outline. You can fix it later <3
Think of it as the “zero draft” instead of the first draft. “Garbage draft” works too.
Write it out on paper with pen, or add messy notes to your documents everywhere to really reinforce the idea that there’s no pressure or expectation for perfection.
Don’t look at any of the draft as you write it until you’re done the draft. Looking back at bad writing while working on the same project can be really discouraging, so just don’t look.
Once you finish the draft, wait a couple weeks. Long enough to distance yourself from it, so you can come back to fix it with a clear head.
Don’t compare your first draft to published books. Ever. Those books might be on their tenth, twentieth, thirtieth draft. It’s unfair. Don’t bully yourself or your project.
Set yourself a goal, x words per day, x minutes spent writing, whatever you want. Just make sure it’s achievable. Don’t set yourself up for failure unless you’re asking for discouragement.
You got this <33 Just get that draft down.
When you finish the draft, rewrite the whole thing, using the original draft as a reference if you like. There will almost certainly be countless details you want to change, so rewriting the story will be easier than fixing the original.
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