4 tips to help you get to the end of the draft
There is a point in almost every single first draft of a novel where getting to the end seems impossible. This frustrating point can occur at different stages throughout the drafting process, but it seems to commonly crop up after the initial excitement of the start but before the thrill of getting towards the end. Those middle acts of your novel can be tricky to navigate, and I dread to think how many otherwise promising novels have been abandoned partway through as a result.
With this in mind, it’s worth knowing a few different tricks and tips to help you get to the end. Here are four ways to help you get to the end of the draft, and please feel free to add your own in the comments box.
Leave gaps if you need to
There’s nothing wrong with leaving a few gaps in your first draft if you need to. It might be nice to have a full draft as soon as possible, but if you’re stuck on a particular scene and can’t find a way through it no matter how much you try, it may well be more productive to just leave it for now and go onto some bits that you know you can do.
You also don’t necessarily need to write absolutely everything in full straight away, either. Another tip for those tricky scenes is to simply write a summary of what needs to go in the gap so it’s easier to work out later, when you’ve hopefully got more of an idea how to go about it anyway.
Don’t panic about the quality
It’s also worth not thinking about the quality of the draft at all. If this means that you don’t read anything back until you’ve fully completed the first draft of the novel then so be it. It can be hard to suppress our inner editor when we look back over rough work, but if we spend all our time revising what we’ve already got, we’ll never make progress with anything new. Suck it up, don’t panic, and move on.
Allow yourself time to think
Completing a first draft can also lead to the feeling that you should be writing all the time. If you find this useful, great. However, if you feel that the pressure of writing all the time is too much, give yourself a bit of space. Allowing yourself time away from the draft to think – whether it’s about your story or something else entirely – can be hugely useful and means you’ll be fresher and (hopefully) brimming with ideas when you go back to it.
Give yourself a bit of credit
Finally, give yourself some credit. Writing a novel is hard, and having the staying power to get through to the end of a draft is something you should definitely be proud of. Even if you’re only halfway through the draft at the moment, it’s still a huge achievement and more fiction than most people will write in a lifetime. So don’t be too hard on yourself. Be proud of what you’ve already done, and don’t forget to look forward to the rest.
