Iâve seen a lot of advice posts that encourage writing a âbadâ first draft, or saying that the point of the first draft isnât to be âgoodâ just to be done, but I have yet to see any examples of what that actually means (which is unfortunate because for a lot of first-time writers that may just mean that their best effort on a first draft isnât âgood enoughâ), so thatâs what Iâm here for! The ultimate advocate of ugly writing, babey! Letâs write some âbadâ first drafts!!
Forewarning that this is going to be difficult for you perfectionists out there (same hat tho!!!), but really, if youâre looking to finish a first draft within a reasonable time frame (and not continue to rewrite the beginning 50 times to get there, only to be disappointed when the next scenes arenât as âgoodâ as the beginning), then this really is the way to go. Perfectionism comes in super handy in later drafts, but itâs a real burden in the first draft, and I really really relate to that. What I find that helps keep my perfectionism in check while Iâm drafting is to keep a separate Word doc open (or a notebook and pen at hand) to jot down new ideas or things that have changed throughout the draft. Putting a page number down next to the notation will save your life as well. Your future self will thank you!
Okay, so letâs get into it! You have an idea, and you need to get that first draft out before you lose motivation or move on to a shiny new WIP idea. Whatâs that first draft going to look like?
Write the scenes youâre excited about first. If youâre someone who, like myself, needs to write things in chronological order, then write these scenes in chronological order - but! if you have the conclusion figured out, then write it now, yes, even before that one bit in the middle youâre not sure about. Is it likely that some details in these scenes will change as you keep writing different parts of the book? Yes! Do it anyway! Anything you write will be helpful for later drafts, so write those scenes!!! Plus, if you start with what youâre excited about, youâll want to keep writing even after theyâre finished, because your brain will just keep generating other super cool ideas for those in-between scenes. And yeah, there will definitely be filler scenes to write, but you can probably worry about those in the next draft.
If youâre on a roll, donât worry about punctuation, grammar, or spelling. I mean it! If those red squiggles in Word bother you, turn them off (theyâre really only semi-helpful for editing, and weâre not doing that right now). If you write faster and think better using âinternet grammarâ (minimal/excessive punctuation, no capitalization, weird spelling, etc.), then do that! If it helps you get words on the page, itâs worth doing.
If youâre not on a roll, try putting some space between what youâve written and what you need to write. For me, that frequently means hitting enter (even mid-sentence if I suddenly get stuck), typing âmonkey,â and then hitting enter again, as many times as it takes for my brain to reboot and remember what the hell I was going for. If that means I have a chain of 20 monkeys in the middle of a paragraph, so be it. They get to hang out there until I come back in draft two and delete them.Â
Iâve also written âuhhhhhhâ and âoh fuck now whatâ several times in a first draft. It happens. Itâs easier to write in a way that mirrors your thought process, so just do what works. Use memes in your prose to keep it moving - itâll make future you laugh when you go back through on draft two!
Donât be afraid to change major pieces of plot - but donât you dare go back and rewrite earlier pieces to match! Letâs say youâre at the end of act one and you revealed some tragic detail about your MCâs backstory, but now youâre in the middle of act two and youâve realized that it no longer fits your idea of MC and you no longer want it to be true. Simply make a brief note of it and keep writing like that scene in act one never happened. Deleting, rewriting, and repurposing are all for later drafts! The goal on the first draft is literally just to reach the end - and itâs inevitable that youâll find and change the story along the way.
Forget about foreshadowing. No matter how detailed of an outliner you are, the fact is that in the first draft you really donât actually know whatâs going to happen yet in your book (see point 5). So forget about trying to foreshadow. Spell out whatâs happening plain as day - because the first draft is just one long exposition dump to aide you in future drafts. If you get halfway through and a sudden twist or weird piece of backstory jumps out at you, write it in as if you had foreshadowed, even though you havenât yet. Make a note of it, and maybe even note where you could foreshadow this in the next few drafts, but keep moving forward.Â
Changing perspectives is fine even if it goes against how you know you want your final draft to be. If you have a scene in mind that you know you need to include, but you have no idea how MC would react during it, but you know how your side character would react, write the scene from the side characterâs perspective. You can think about MCâs POV in that scene later - again, the point is just to get it written, so if switching POVs gets you through the scene, do it.
Ultimately, this is what people mean when they say your first draft is going to be âugly.â Itâs going to be a little (or a lot) messy. But thatâs okay. The struggle of the beginning writer is realizing that your first draft is not going to look like anything youâve read before - because those are final drafts. And to the gifted writers who breezed through school (like I did) by submitting their first draft essays for grading - thatâs not going to work here. Every time you rewrite a piece, it gets better. If you try to make your first draft perfect, you will just end up frustrated and disappointed at the time you wasted, because youâll end up reworking 80% of it or more in the subsequent drafts. Your writing style will change and improve, and your knowledge will grow, and every time you revisit a draft, that will be reflected.
So write that ugly draft. Insert so many authorâs notes mid-paragraph that you look like an early 2000s fanfic writer. Contradict previous scenes like youâre constructing the most elaborate Winchester Mystery House -esque draft the world has ever seen, complete with paragraphs that lead to nowhere and mysterious monkey chains cutting sentences in half.Â
And then, in the second draft, make it look as though the first draft never happened.
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