First Drafts

Are you writing a first draft?

Whether it’s for #NANOWRIMO or just in general, here’s an important tip: in the immortal words of Terry Pratchett, the first draft is just you telling yourself the story. Try not to worry about making anything perfect. Perfect isn’t what first drafts are about! 

First drafts are about letting your ideas come. Maybe you’ve done an outline and now you’re letting your imagination fill things in. Maybe you’re just sitting down and seeing where the pen takes you, depending on your writing style. But once you get going, don’t feel like you have to make it all perfect the first time out. 

Can’t think of the right thing? Leave yourself a note [witty dialogue here] [have something shocking happen here] or highlight a NAME you haven’t made up yet. Maybe note in a comment that you should really do some research on alcohol in your (comparative) time period.

But that’s all for later. If there are some ideas flowing well, let Future You come up with the ones that aren’t flowing right now. Future You might hate Present You (Past You?) but don’t worry about that just now.

I’m doing some writing that I know will need work later on. Things will get moved, deleted, rewritten. I’m pretty sure I’m repeating myself, getting things out of order, and definitely leaving things out that I’ll want in later on.

That’s ok. I’m going with the flow for this first draft and making sure I at least have my basic ideas down now. Future Me can shake her head over all the things to fix later, this first draft is just me working out the basic storyline.