The All-Important First Draft

 

We often find story ideas swirling in our minds. Something we saw or heard triggered the beginnings of a story, or an essay, article, poem, or even a novel. The bits and pieces float through our head until we know we need to sit down and write that all-important first draft.

Why all-important? If you never write it, then there will be no happy ending for you. Those things you'd been thinking about will finally disappear into the great beyond, and you'll be trying to come up with a new story idea.

Today's poster quote makes a good point. Author, Terry Pratchett, tells us: 'The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.' What you're doing is putting those many story parts that have been floating in your head together in a coherent way. 

Writers often question whether to do the editing as they go along when writing the first draft. My feeling is that it is better to write the entire first draft. Read it over when you finish and put it away for a few days. Even if you're eager to continue working on the piece. Why? If you wait and read it over in a few days, or even longer, you're going to see the overall picture in a different way, and you'll also see errors that you never noticed when you read the draft as soon as you finished writing. Stepping away for a short while is to the writer's benefit. 

The same thing happens when you read that draft aloud after you pull it from your files. Silent reading and hearing it spoken give you two different perspectives. You'll catch many small errors by speaking the words, not only silently reading. 

The first draft is merely a beginning. It's the first step in the making of a story. You might consider it a springboard that moves you forward. 

Once the first draft is completed and has rested quietly in your files, you can move on to the editing and revising steps. That can be done more than once. If you do this step multiple times, let the story rest in your files for a couple days before each new revision. Once again, you'll see things with more clarity and will find errors more easily. 

Writing a First Draft

 

I've got an idea for a story to send to a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. I've been trying to get a first draft written, but I get a few paragraphs and then decide it is no good. Quit. Start again another day. I realized yesterday that I should have finished each of those first attempts. Get a full first draft done and then revise after it sits for a few days.

The poster today tells us that the first draft is just a working piece to help you create a strong finished story. Some writers end up with multiple first drafts for one story idea. Is that wrong? No. You do whatever works for you. You might snip this and that from each draft and weave them together for the final one. 

There are times when we write a first draft that is almost a finished product. We only need a few minor edits. It happens, but I can't say I've done it a majority of the time. I think the kind of of first draft that needs little editing comes when we work on the story idea in our mind for a fair amount of time. It's one reason we find it hard to fall asleep at night. In the quiet darkness of our bedroom, we can sift and sort the story idea mentally for....often too long a time. 

Work on that idea in your head while doing household tasks that don't require much mental effort on your part. Unloading the dishwasher takes little mental acuity. Grab a dish or two and keep working on the idea in your head.

I have read a good many quotes by writers about first drafts. That should tell us the importance of writing one. No writer should sit down at a keyboard, write the story, and submit to a publisher all in one fell swoop. Nope. You need to go through this process step by step.

Write a first draft.

Let it sit for a few days.

Proofread, edit, and revise

Let it sit a little longer.'

Do a final edit.

Let it sit another day or two, then submit.

This all comes down to taking time to write what was once only an idea in your mind. Don't rush! Remember in school when you rushed to write a paper last minute? Was it your best work? Probably not. 

Never negate the importance of the first draft. It is the beginning of the process which leads to a finished product.