First drafts can be challenging. Especially when you write one after finishing a finely (or should I say finally?) polished manuscript. Then here are you, expecting your new story to come out as cleanly as a sheet of perforated paper. But your paper was from the dollar store and doesn't tear cleanly at all. And now you're over-thinking every word, every idea. You're attempting to explain quantum physics when all you were asked to build a house out of blocks.
Keep it simple. If it falls over a few times, that's okay. They're just blocks.
What I find funny (and mildly dismaying) is rereading said first draft. Turns out I only thought I was weaving beautiful prose and conveying my character's deep and complex feelings.
Then I run across something like this:
"...," he said, his voice lined with a note of bemusement.
Um. What?
Probably would have been easier to say he was bemused.
But, messy as it is, I try and remember that a first draft is a playground. It's one of the only times it's okay to fingerpaint outside the lines. No one will see it (unless, say, I blog about it) so no one will judge me for it.
So go ahead, get out your box of 64 Crayolas and draw on the wall. First drafts may be messy, but messy is fun.
Just ask my dog, who is fond of running in the mud. She never looks happier than when she's got grass and clods of dirt under every toenail.
Any dreadful first draft lines to share? C'mon, let's hear 'em!
For today,
Sm:)e, Feel Good, Respect the process.
3 comments:
Thanks for the reminder. I am about 80% of the way through my first draft and it feels awful. I am acutely aware of all the things wrong with it, and so going on feels pointless and stupid. I know what's supposed to happen next. I have a vague idea for the end. But every time I sit down to type it feels lame.
I see other people finishing their drafts and it's easy to think they knew what they were doing. They never felt like it was a stupid book and a pointless waste of time.
Of course, this isn't the case, but it can feel that way. :D Thanks for the pep talk!
I wrote a whole blogpost about this but in a draft that went out to beta readers, I actually had the sentence:
It was a dark and stormy night.
I laughed so hard when that was pointed out to me.
Ha! Yeah, sometimes when you step back from a first draft and come back to it, it is like, "What was I thinking?" LOL
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