5 Ways to Write a Perfect First Draft (or Nearly)

“The first draft.” Is there any phrase more likely to evoke such a poignant mix of anticipation and dread?

Anticipation, of course, because we get to write—we get to tell our story!

And dread, of course, because we’re about subject ourselves to months, even years, of agony and frustration as we blindly slog toward a finish line we aren’t even sure exists yet.

And then, when we reach that finish line, the manuscript we end up with is likely to be in such a disastrous state that we have to start all over again with equally difficult revisions.

That’s just how it is, right? No less than Ernest Hemingway colorfully and famously told us first drafts are never any good. Them’s the breaks, kid, deal with it.

Except—is that really true? Do first drafts have to turn out awful?

Well, maybe not if you’re a genius, right? Maybe not if your story sensibilities and writing skills are so mad all you have to do is touch your fingertips to the keyboard for perfection to come tumbling out like glittery little unicorns tap-dancing all over the keys.

Sadly, of course, that’s not you, and that’s not me. So  it looks like we’re just going to have to keep the ol’ stiff upper lip and continue churning out those rubbishy first drafts.

Except—nope. Today, I’m here to tell you that just about anyone can write a nearly perfect first draft.

Why We Like the Idea of the Rubbishy First Draft

Before you can even think about writing a perfect first draft, you first have to consciously address why so many writers believe it’s an impossible idea (kinda like Shangri-La or the Fountain of Youth).

Very few writers can read statements like Joyce Carol Oates’s Writing Tip #2 without at least a little part of us cheering raucously in commiseration:

First drafts are hell. Final drafts, paradise.

Why are we cheering?

Because we resonate, of course. We’ve all written horrible, miserable first drafts. It’s just nice to know we’re not alone. If Hemingway and Oates and so many other geniuses struggle with their first drafts, well, then, phew!, I guess I’m not doing so bad after all.

Also, bad first drafts are just part of the writing journey. When we start out (and perhaps for many years after), we are writing rubbish. Nothing wrong with that. (I won’t show you my early manuscripts if you promise not to show me yours.) But who says rubbishy first drafts can’t be just a part of the process? Who says you have to stay stuck in Ow-This-First-Draft-Hurts-So-Bad Land for the entirety of your writing career?

Who says that? All right, all right, so yeah, actually, there are a lot of respected writers who seem to say exactly that. For example, in his book The Lie That Tells a Truth, John Dufresne says:

Expecting too much from an early draft is the most common mistake beginning writers make, and it leads to frustration and disappointment…. You must allow yourself to fail. You only write a first draft in order to have something to revise.

To which, I would like to point out two things:

1. He says, “beginning writers”—not all writers until the end of time.

2. He says, “you only write a first draft to have something to revise.” Maybe yes, maybe no. That depends entirely on your process and your priorities—which we’re going to talk about in just a sec.

But then he goes on to say something very interesting:

Nelson Algren said he just kept writing until his story found its own plot. (I’d have to confess I work in the same inefficient way.)

Hmm, inefficient. That doesn’t sound like the end of the road to me. That sounds like a problem that can be solved!

4 Drawbacks of a Rubbishy First Draft

When you purposefully allow yourself to sit down and write a rubbishy first draft—on the notion that it’s going to create a better story in the long run—you may indeed garner some good returns.

For example, you may write faster and more intuitively. You may be more motivated to get words on paper, which, of course, is the whole sum of the game. You may find it easier to initially stymie your infernal internal editor. Some of you may even have more fun writing this way.

Nothing wrong with that. It’s important to know what you’re gaining by whatever methods you’re employing. But it’s also important to know what you’re sacrificing, so you can determine whether the gains and losses are balancing.

Here are four of the most common drawbacks writers encounter when writing purposefully rubbishy first drafts:

1. You Get a… Rubbishy First Draft

Obviously, the biggest drawback—as Hemingway, Oates, and Dufresne would all tell you—is that you don’t end up with a tight, clean manuscript. Rather, you’re much more likely to end up with that promised big fat mess.

2. You Wonder if You’re a Rubbishy Writer

The result of that rubbishy draft is that you’re very likely to look at it despairingly and fight depressing feelings that tell you you’re also a rubbishy writer. After all, the proof is in the pudding, right? Instead of feeling proud of your accomplishment when you start reading it over, you may instead find yourself wanting to just hide under the bed covers for a few days.

3. You’re Faced With Exhausting, Frustrating Revisions

But of course, you don’t hide. You’re a writer, and writers tend to suffer from that infamous Never-Never-Never-Give-Up compulsion. So you get out of bed and start editing the heck out of that slobby thing. And editing. And editing. And editing. And editing. It’s exhausting, and, even worse, it’s often frustrating because you still don’t have a clear idea of what went wrong or how to fix it. You’re just gutting your way through it.

4. Your Story Misses Out on Organic Perfection

Speculative novelist and publisher William Sloane pointed out:

More fiction fails because the author has not had the discipline and ingenuity to provide and sustain a means of perception than for any other single reason.

You will only ever get the chance to write one first draft. That draft is your single greatest opportunity to not just create cohesion and beauty, but to create them organically. Revisions are great—heaven knows we all need them—but they rarely match the energy and brilliance that emerges in that first chronological rush of storytelling.

5 Ways to Write an (All But) Perfect First Draft

I used to wholeheartedly believe in all that stuff about rubbishy first drafts. Mostly, I believed in it because I wrote rubbishy first drafts—and then slogged through the agony of difficult revisions.

But then something pretty cool started happening. About the time I started writing Book 8 of my current 11, my revisions started getting infinitely easier. Almost laughably easier.

Why?

Because my first drafts were so darn clean. There for a while, I started wondering if I had somehow turned into a delusional fathead. But, nope, my critique partners and editors were telling me pretty much the same thing. I still had to do revisions, of course. But they were edits, not rewrites. The final drafts of my last two novels have been extraordinarily close to the first drafts. And, what’s more, they were a blast to write.

This happened because I started rejecting the idea that first drafts couldn’t be excellent and started using the following five steps to help me plan and create the best possible first drafts I had in me. As acclaimed short story writer Brent van Staalduinen says:

There’s a beauty, I think, in writing quality first drafts. I’m loath to call them “rough,” because I write slowly and deliberately and enjoy readable early work. I’ve tried to write with a … first-draft abandon, but the work isn’t as satisfying.

1. Don’t Start With the First Draft

What’s the secret to writing a great first draft? Easy. You don’t start with the first draft. As we talked about last week, storytelling and writing are actually two entirely different skill sets. Too often, when we try to do them both at once in the first draft, they end up getting in each other’s way.

Stephen Covey explains:

…all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and physical (second) creation. The physical follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint.

Check out the Outlining Your Novel Workbook software!

That’s why outlining is such a powerful tool in the writer’s arsenal. It allows you to organize your thoughts, consider the logical train of cause and effect in your plots, and create a road map before you jump into the wild dune buggy of actually putting beautiful words on paper.

2. Ask All the Right (and Hard) Questions

Storytelling is an equation of questions and answers. Something doesn’t make sense within the progression of our characters’ actions and reactions? All right, so we have to question that. We have to acknowledge the plot holes and find the right answers to fill them in.

This is not only vastly easier and less time-consuming in the outlining phase, it’s also more powerful. It allows you to bring your logical brain into play to examine your choices. Are you just copping to the first obvious answer that comes along—and writing away with it? Or are you taking a moment to really consider, not just the plot consequences of your choice, but also whether you’re digging as deep as possible for the single most creative and original possibility?

In the actual writing of the first draft, our brains are cluttered by a hundred different demands—to the point it’s easy to be too distracted to step back objectively and realize we’re not taking full advantage of all the possibilities.

3. Find and Harmonize Plot/Character/Theme

One of the chief reasons slapdash first drafts fail is that they have improperly presented the symbiotic triangle of plot, character, and theme. If the author wasn’t aware of any one of these going into the first draft, then she had to discover them in the first draft.

This rarely happens in a cohesive way in a rushed first draft. The plot might be there from the beginning, but the character arc doesn’t become clear until halfway in, and the theme is then twisted around in an effort for it make sense in time for the climactic encounter.

Although this can (and, indeed, must) be fixed in revisions, you’ll never get the chance to do it as organically as you will during the initial writing of the first draft.

4. Organize Your Brain’s Tasks

The brain’s various facets don’t so much work simultaneously as they work in concert—pushing and pulling, each part in its proper place. The problem here is that the first draft is largely a creative endeavor. Logic requires us to step back out of the zone of rapid-fire word-crafting, so we can thoughtfully examine the big picture.

Because most writers instinctively understand that employing logic in the wrong place can easily throw them off their groove, they usually enter rubbishy first drafts through the door with the sign that says: Abandon Logic, All Ye Who Enter Here.

But, of course, you can no more write a good story without logic than you can without creativity.

This is why it’s valuable to do as much of your logical figurings-out as possible before you throw yourself into the intoxicating embrace of the word-crafting muse. Don’t tax your brain making it do things it doesn’t want to. Instead, work with it to optimize its abilities and output.

5. Trust Your Planning: Write Like the Wind

Okay, great, you say. But all that stuff isn’t actually about writing the first draft. What about that?

That, my friend, is now the easy part. That is where you sit down at the keyboard and you start typing like a gleeful lunatic.  You’ve already created a solid story. You’ve already answered your own most important questions: Does this work? How does this work? What plot pitfalls do I need to be aware of and how can I sidestep them?

The key now is to trust your planning. Don’t start second-guessing yourself. Write with exactly the same abandon you did before in your rubbish phase. No, actually, write with even more abandon. Write quickly, trust the organic process, and don’t get hung up on doubts.

Will you write a perfect first draft? No. You’ll still have typos, clunky sentences, and, yep, probably a few little plot holes that slipped through the cracks. But I guarantee you’ll have written a comparatively perfect first draft that requires far fewer revisions on the back end.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What was the most rubbishy draft you’ve ever written and what was the most perfect first draft you’ve ever written? What do you think made the difference? Tell me in the comments!

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