Your First Drafts Probably Suck (and That’s Okay!)

My second blog post is aimed primarily at aspiring writers in any discipline or genre, though it’s also something published writers need to hear from time to time as well. I chose the topic because it’s the sort of thing I wish I’d heard more often in my undergraduate writing program, the thrust of which can be boiled down into a single sentence.

Your first drafts probably suck, and that’s okay.

I know, it’s a little sensational, but it’s still true. Bear with me.

When I was just starting out, I fell into the same trap I’ve heard articulated by many other emerging authors, writers, and game designers. 

I’d sit down with an idea, my brain humming with creative energy. It might have been a story seed or a bit of dialogue. A funny character interaction. A D&D adventure. 

But then, as I tried to write, something would go terribly, horribly awry. Maybe I had a hard time establishing the scene. Maybe the dialogue felt clunky or it just wasn’t as funny as I’d expected. To my horror, all of that creative potential would curdle on the page as my excitement congealed into a morass of self-doubt, fueling my imposter syndrome.  

To make matters worse, I’d immediately compare the lines, paragraphs, or pages I’d just written to whoever I was reading at the time. James S.A. Cory. Joe Abercrombie. George R.R. Martin.  All phenomenal writers with years of experience and, more importantly, whole teams of dedicated readers and talented professionals helping them polish work born out of years of hard-won experience.  

In retrospect, it hardly seems fair, but the younger me was utterly ruthless in his self-criticism.

Sometimes I’d push the words around, hoping that the alchemy of obsessive line editing would fix the problem, before I stuffed the offending attempt at a short story or novel seed into a folder, often with an optimistic label like “work in progress,” where it never saw the light of day again.

On a particularly hard day, I might delete the offending document altogether before doing whatever I could to distract myself from the crushing “truth” of my utter lack of talent, skill, or hope of success as a writer.

Often, it took days or weeks for me to work up the courage to sit down and try again, robbing myself of writing time and some concepts that, with a bit of work, might have turned into something interesting.

The other problem with this cycle is more insidious and ultimately self-defeating. It turns the act of writing into a source of frustration, pain, and shame. This only exacerbates the anxiety, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome that’s often responsible for the problem in the first place. 

Don’t get me wrong, everyone has bad days. There are still times when I struggle to make the words appear or when I’m not particularly pleased with how a sentence, paragraph, or even a chapter turns out.

So what’s the secret?

Learn to love your shitty first draft, or at least accept it.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m serious. 

Like nearly every other creative endeavor, writing is a process. Like a sculptor, we begin with a lump of raw material and shape it into something beautiful. The difference between a writer and a sculptor in this extended metaphor is that the writer has to generate a lump of raw material before we can begin the process of working it into something beautiful.

Can you guess what that raw material is?

It’s your draft.

If that particular metaphor isn’t your jam, what about engineering? Engineers often begin with a problem, draft a design, and then use iterative prototyping to achieve an optimal result and overcome the stated problem.

As writers, the “problem” we need to solve is the writing of a good book (or game, or short story, or screenplay).  Our design is our draft, which we then improve through iterative prototyping until we (or our publishers) are satisfied with the result.  

The big takeaway, at least for me, is that the draft is simply the unrefined creative matter that we turn into a finished work.

Published authors don’t disgorge the contents of their imaginations right onto the printed page.  They write and revise a draft, which is then read by alpha readers, who provide feedback, leading to more revisions. A lot of authors also have writing groups that provide more feedback, which gets incorporated via more revisions.

Often, all of that occurs before an author sends a book to their editorial team, which results in more edits that iterate on previous drafts.  

Like a sculptor, the draft is shaped and reshaped, revised, and honed through iteration after iteration until something beautiful emerges from the raw material.

There’s another significant part of this process worth mentioning. The more you do it, the better your initial drafts get, because, at its core, writing is a craft.

Being a good writer isn’t some neurological binary that you’re born with. Sure, like anything, some people have talent, but mostly it’s a skill honed through time and practice. The more comfortable you get with your early drafts, the more you’ll write. The more you write and edit, the more you think critically about your own work and how to improve it, and the better you’ll become.

So your first drafts suck, but that’s okay! 

Don’t hate them for their warts and flaws. Get comfortable with them. After all, like I said above, your draft is a lump of unrefined, creative matter. It contains the seeds of something beautiful contained, revealed with time and work.

And if you don’t believe me, here’s Yoda again.

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