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| Photo credit: readerwalker on Flickr |
If you've been a writer for any amount of
time, you probably know that the first draft is not exactly perfection—in fact,
it's usually on the way other end of the spectrum somewhere between embarrassing and I’m-going-to-hide-this-away-forever.
If you're a writer, you know that writing the
first draft can feel painful. The words that appear on the page don't match up
with the images in your head. The epic story you dreamt up, when written, falls
flat. Your witty, flawed, fantastic characters border on stereotype and you're
slightly terrified no amount of writing will fix it.
You start to question whether you're cut out
for this writing thing, after all.
Good news, is no one expects perfection from
the first draft—far from it. You see, I read something not too long ago that
really stuck with me (sadly, I can't find the link despite my futile efforts to
dig it up) and it's something I think is important for every writer to
remember.
The first draft isn't meant to be perfect,
friends, because the first draft is much more for the writer than it is for the
reader.
Allow me to explain.
Regardless of whether you're a pantser or a
plotter or somewhere in between, the first draft is the place where the writer
learns the story. It's where you get to know your characters, where you
discover the world you're creating, where the plot starts to really form in
front of you. While writing the first draft, you really get to know the story
and everything it encompasses and chances are by the end of the draft, you know
a lot more about your story than you did when you first began writing it.
So naturally, the first draft is going to be a
little scatter-brained. There will be plot holes and the characters will be far
from perfect and the writing, well...it's usually not your best.
But that's ok.
The point isn't to write a perfect first draft—the
point is to learn about your story. The point is to get to know your characters
and to work out the plot so that you can go back and really flesh it out. The
first draft is the skeleton—the basic idea of what the final draft is going to
be.
The meat of your story will be developed
through revisions.
And that's not to say that you should expect
your second draft to be perfect, or even your fourth or final draft, for that
matter, but with every revision you make, with every passage you re-write,
you'll get closer to that completed story—the one you originally envisioned
when you set out upon the enormous task of writing a novel.
And that terrible first draft experience will
be entirely worth it, after all.
Have you ever been discouraged by a first
draft? What helped you get through it?
