Dear First Draft: It’s Not You, It’s Me (Okay, It’s You)

#writingcommunity #booksky #amwriting #writing Unfetterred Treacle

Dear First Draft,

We need to talk.

No, don’t panic, this isn’t that kind of breakup. We’ve come a long way together. You were there when the idea first lit up my brain like a busted neon sign at 3 a.m. You were patient while I fumbled around in the dark, throwing words on the page like spaghetti at a wall. You didn’t judge me when I used the word just seventeen times in one paragraph. For that alone, I thank you.

But here’s the thing, you’re…a hot mess. What we have isn’t working.

You’re soggy in the middle, your dialogue sounds like a soap opera written by a sleep-deprived AI, and let’s be honest, you don’t get to the heart of the story for two hundred pages. Your pacing has the grace of a drunk three-legged llama.

And yet, I love you. Or at least I love what you represent.

You’re proof that I showed up. That I committed. That I fought through the blank page and said, “Cram it, inner critic.” You’re the ugly, glorious, necessary step between nothing and something.

But now it’s time.

Time to cut your overlong scenes and all those cliches and echo words. And so much telling instead of showing. All that backstory that we worked so hard on together. It really doesn’t all have to be in there. Time to kill that side character who added nothing but snarky one-liners and little else. Time to replace all those filter words that put distance between you and the reader. Time to get rid of all the descriptions of beautiful places we thought of together that have nothing to do with the story. You remember the ones.

And yes, it’s going to hurt. I’m going to curse your name. I’m going to wonder what I was thinking when I wrote that mixed-metaphor about hitting it out of the park before the ship sailed. But deep down, we both know this has to happen.

Because I want you to grow into your full potential.
I want you to be immersive. Tight. Unputdownable.
I want readers to love you the way I wanted to love you on page one.

So, thank you, First Draft. For being brave enough to be bad.
I’ll fix you now. (Or at least try)
And someday, we’ll look back on this and laugh.

(Probably.)

With deep affection,
Me