Writing A First Draft

Writing a First Draft

I’ve seen a lot of advice posts that encourage writing a “bad” first draft, or saying that the point of the first draft isn’t to be “good” 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 isn’t “good enough”), so that’s what I’m here for! The ultimate advocate of ugly writing, babey! Let’s write some “bad” first drafts!!

Forewarning that this is going to be difficult for you perfectionists out there (same hat tho!!!), but really, if you’re 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 aren’t as “good” as the beginning), then this really is the way to go. Perfectionism comes in super handy in later drafts, but it’s 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 I’m 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 let’s 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. What’s that first draft going to look like?

Write the scenes you’re excited about first. If you’re 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 you’re 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 you’re excited about, you’ll want to keep writing even after they’re 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 you’re on a roll, don’t worry about punctuation, grammar, or spelling. I mean it! If those red squiggles in Word bother you, turn them off (they’re really only semi-helpful for editing, and we’re not doing that right now). If you write faster and think better using “internet grammar” (minimal/excessive punctuation, no capitalization, weird spelling, etc.), then do that! If it helps you get words on the page, it’s worth doing.

If you’re not on a roll, try putting some space between what you’ve written and what you need to write. For me, that frequently means hitting enter (even mid-sentence if I suddenly get stuck), typing “monkey,” 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.

I’ve also written “uhhhhhh” and “oh fuck now what” several times in a first draft. It happens. It’s 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 - it’ll make future you laugh when you go back through on draft two!

Don’t be afraid to change major pieces of plot - but don’t you dare go back and rewrite earlier pieces to match! Let’s say you’re at the end of act one and you revealed some tragic detail about your MC’s backstory, but now you’re in the middle of act two and you’ve 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 it’s inevitable that you’ll 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 don’t actually know what’s going to happen yet in your book (see point 5). So forget about trying to foreshadow. Spell out what’s 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 haven’t yet. Make a note of it, and maybe even note where you could foreshadow this in the next few drafts, but keep moving forward.

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 character’s perspective. You can think about MC’s 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 “ugly.” It’s going to be a little (or a lot) messy. But that’s okay. The struggle of the beginning writer is realizing that your first draft is not going to look like anything you’ve 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 - that’s 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 you’ll 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 author’s notes mid-paragraph that you look like an early 2000s fanfic writer. Contradict previous scenes like you’re 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.

And then, in the second draft, make it look as though the first draft never happened.

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waitingrm

4 years ago

Accidentally swallows the coin I was buried with and gets left on the dock for eternity because I couldn't pay the ferryman

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lol

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waitingrm

5 years ago

growing up is so weird because when I was in high school, it felt like the whole world. and I know that sounds dramatic but teenagers are dramatic and I made myself sick stressing over so many dumb things, like my senior quote and how I looked in school pictures, who liked and disliked me, and whatever the latest drama was.

and now I look at that building and it seems so small, and I realize it’s because—yeah—it was always small. everything that felt so big and overwhelming shrank in size the moment I stepped back from that place, and I wish it was something I’d been able to see while I was in high school so I wouldn’t have been so sad over things I’ve already forgotten.

anyway, I guess for any of my younger followers on here, just remember that sometimes you can’t help but get caught up in rush of high school, and because you spend so much of your time there, it becomes your whole world, but don’t forget that there’s a huge world outside of it and one day you’re gonna get to explore it and it’s gonna be huge and terrifying, but you’ll look back and see that so many things you stressed over in high school just weren’t worth it.

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Advice how fun is it that I first found this post during my first week as a freshman in high school and I’m just rediscovering now as I’m about to be a freshman in college

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waitingrm

4 years ago

Please, please, please don’t ever let yourself believe that you don’t matter or that the people in your life would be better off without you. You’re so much more loved, so much more valued than you know. Your existence matters and the people in your life are lucky to know you. Don’t forget that.

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positivity

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waitingrm

5 years ago

note to self: just because someone did the thing you were thinking about doing, and did it way better than you could ever hope to do, doesn’t mean it would be stupid or pointless to go ahead and try to still do the thing anyway.

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waitingrm

5 years ago

i will steady your hand when you’re losing your grip

Pairing: Bill/Eddie

Rating: T

Word Count: 13,720

Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, High School, Childhood Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Crying, Kissing, Sad Bill Denbrough, Bisexual Bill Denbrough, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Bad Parenting, Best Friends, Bullying, Period-Typical Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Blood And Injury, Growing Up Together, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Child Neglect, The World Is A Big Bad Scary Place But We’ll Survive It If We Love Each Other

“Okay,” Eddie says, slapping Bill on the back as they arrive at the end of Eddie’s driveway. “You gonna be okay going the last couple blocks by yourself?”

The question is routine by now, asked every single day since 1989. The answer is too, Bill waving away Eddie’s concern with a smile that crinkles his eyes. “Yeah, I’m good. You know m-m-m-me.”

That’s the problem, Eddie thinks, watching him go. I do know you.

Bill’s in a bad way and Eddie loves him through it.

Read @ AO3

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THIS IS SO GOOD SHDHDJDNND

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waitingrm

5 years ago

The Boy Who Lived

HARRY: I shouldn’t have survived – it was my destiny to die – even Dumbledore thought so – and yet I lived. I beat Voldemort. All these people – my parents, Fred, the Fallen Fifty – and it’s me that gets to live? How is that? All this damage – and it’s my fault.

GINNY: They were killed by Voldemort.

HARRY: But if I’d stopped him sooner? All that blood on my hands. And now our son has been taken too–

GINNY: He’s not dead. Do you hear me Harry? He’s not dead.

HARRY: The Boy Who Lived. How many people have to die for the Boy Who Lived?

- HP&TCH, Act Four, Scene Six

We learned in Philosopher’s Stone that Harry’d deepest desire was to be reunited with his family. To have a family. And we see at the end of Deathly Hallows, that he’s achieved this desire. He’s married to Ginny and has three children. His children. For the first time in his life, he’s surrounded by loving blood relatives. And you know that makes him happy, happier than anything else.

But deep down–or maybe not so deep down–he doesn’t think he deserves that happiness. He looks at all the people who didn’t grow up to have families of their own. The people who lost family members, who lost siblings, parents, children, partners. And then he looks at what he has and, believing so tragically that the deaths rest on his own shoulders, thinks he doesn’t deserve it. One of Harry’s central motivating forces is his desire to save people, and he wasn’t able to save everyone.

So, hold that in your mind as you read the next bit.

ALBUS: The poor orphan who went on to save us all – so may I say – on behalf of wizarding world kind. How grateful we are for your heroism. Should we bow now or will a curtsey do?

HARRY: Albus, please – you know, I’ve never wanted gratitude.

ALBUS: But right now I’m overflowing with it – it must be the kind gift of this mouldy blanket that did it…

HARRY: Mouldy blanket?

ALBUS: What did you think would happen? We’d hug. I’d tell you I always loved you? What?

HARRY: (finally losing his temper) You know what? I’m done with being made responsible for your unhappiness. At least you’ve got a dad. Because I didn’t, okay?

ALBUS: And you think that was unlucky? I don’t.

HARRY: You wish me dead?

ALBUS: No! I just wish you weren’t my dad.

HARRY: (seeing red) Well, there are times I wish you weren’t my son.

(There’s a silence. Albus nods. Pause. Harry realises what he’s said.)

HARRY: No, I didn’t mean that…

- HP&TCC, Act One, Scene Seven

Harry breaks right after Albus implies that he’s never loved him. And then again when Albus says he wishes Harry wasn’t his father. Because Albus, unknowingly, has just confirmed what Harry believes deep down. He’s not worthy of his family’s love. He doesn’t deserve them. He doesn’t deserve that happiness. He didn’t even know what he was saying to Albus as he said it.

And I’m thinking–the process Harry goes through in the course of the play, his efforts to see Albus for who he really is–that has as much to do with healing himself as it does to do with mending his relationship with Albus. By learning how to be a good parent to Albus, he’s proving to himself that he’s worthy of being loved.

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waitingrm

4 years ago

au where Ray, Sissy and Harlan come back to the future with the academy and Klaus makes a big event of locking everyone in the library and giving a ridiculous powerpoint that’s like ‘How To Speed Run The Past 70 Or Whatever Years’ (Five from where he’s been handcuffed to the bar: “it’s 55 you dumbass-). highlights include:

- opening with a picture from the jfk assassination (since they were all a little busy when that was going on) with a big :( drawn over it

- a fifty minute long side-tracked rant about the Vietnam war that only Five is interested in

- “And finally, after a long, painful battle for the sensible people of the world…the Beatles were Defeated”

- “Highlight this note because it WILL be on the test later- Britney Spears was born on December 2nd, 1981″

- “So one day in 1989 43 babies with magic powers were born from women who hadn’t been pregnant, and like? you know? no one ever really looked into that further? we’re in our 30s, I feel like we should have some answers by now?’

“Speaking of 1989, there’s this fantastic album-”

Vanya: “Klaus they don’t need to know who Taylor Swift is-”

Diego: “Let Him Speak.”

- “And on this day I was innocently reading a magazine and discovered my previously beloved sister Allison is friends with Beyonce and she never bothered to introduce me or invite me to a single party-” *powerpoint slide switches to a picture with Allison’s head photoshopped onto a snake* *Sissy asks who Beyonce is and that turns into another sidetracked explanation that takes nearly two hours and involves Everyone screaming*

- “And this is when Luther went to the moon-”

Ray: “the…moon? the fucking moon?”

Klaus: “didn’t the moon landing happen for you guys yet?”

Allison: “no that was ‘69???”

Klaus: “FUCK”

Luther: “Can you try to go in order? You didn’t even tell them Dad’s an alien yet-”

everyone: W H A T?!!?!?!!?!

- 2004: the tragic beginnings of Vanya’s weaboo stage

- 2006: Diego has his first kiss with an Ambassadors daughter after a mission and IMMEDIATELY pukes on her after they finish. (next slide features news footage of the event; Luther has to hold Diego back from attacking Klaus while everyone else is losing their shit)

- “Klaus I really don’t think Twilight counts as a historical event”

Five: “No, actually, it does-”

- *2 hours spent infodumping about Chernobyl while his audience gets progressively more drunk*

- “Klaus, can we please move on from the 90s already-”

“THEY NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE MEDIA DID TO WINONA RYDER”

- footage of Allison’s Less Than Graceful reaction when she got snubbed at the Oscar’s one year

- at some point he tries to explain Modern Speak™ and Internet Culture™ to them and it ends up going like this:

Au Where Ray, Sissy And Harlan Come Back To The Future With The Academy And Klaus Makes A Big Event Of

- “anyway here’s a list of probable war crimes our dad committed”

- *explanation of Ellen DeGeneres’ entire career from start to finish*

- *footage of 14 year old Luther dancing like he got a touchdown after he killed a man in battle*

- Cha Cha Slide: The Song That Changed Everything

- he slips an Entirely Fake historical event in there just to prank them and his siblings try to call him out on it but then Five backs him up because he’s drunk and wants to cause problems. Three Years Later Ray will still mention something about like The Fall Of Telephonia that resulted after a bloody battle between the two rulers and whoever he’s talking to just like. smiles and nods politely

- “And here’s the news clip where 10 year old Five found out on live air that Santa Claus isn’t real. We literally never saw him smile ever again after this”

- he starts explaining Kardashian/Jenner scandals as if they’re political scandals

but anyway. not the most educational lesson plan but I want everyone to have a break and laugh thank you goodnight lmao

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umbrella academy

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