#first drafts

[trixierosewrites]

i think perhaps the practice of first drafts would be better phrased as (instead of "first drafts have to suck") "first drafts have to exist". you cannot have a novel without having written it. it does not matter whether your first draft is the worst thing to have ever existed or the best thing to have ever existed or more likely somewhere in between; it doesn't matter if your first draft is a coherent narrative or something that's full of [WHAT'S THE FUCKING WORD] or [this dialogue seems off, fix it later]; all you have to do, with a first draft, is write it. you cannot edit a blank page.

[jonnywaistcoat]

Hey, Horrormaster Sims. I have a wildly different question that barely relates to TMA (Sorry about that) but its about your own process. Please, if you could, can you tell me how your first drafts made you feel? I'm on the fence about writing my own thing (not a podcast, and again, not Magnus related, though I have a million little aus for that delightful tragedy you wrote, thank you for that!) But I'm discouraged by the collective notion that first drafts are always terrible, because there's no ... examples I can solidly use to help the dumb anxiety beast in my brain that tells me everyone who is in any way popular popped out a golden turd and not, well, you know. One of my friends said 'Oh I bet Jonathan Sims's first draft was nothing like what he wanted' and I got the bright idea to just. Send you an ask, since you're trapped on this hellsite like I am. Anyway, thanks for reading this (if you do) and if you'd rather ask it privately, I am cool with that. Alternatively, you're a hella busy man with Protocol (you and Alex are making me rabid, i hope you know) and you can just ignore this! Cheers, man, and good words.

To my mind all writing advice, especially stuff that's dispensed as truisms (like "first drafts are always garbage") are only useful inasmuch as such advice prompts you to pay attention to how you write best: what helps your workflow, what inspires you, what keeps you going through the rough bits. There are as many different ways to write (and write well) as there are people who write and so always consider this sort of thing a jumping off point to try out or keep in mind as you gradually figure out your own ways of writing.

On first drafts specifically, I think the wisdom "all first drafts are bad" is a bit of unhelpful oversimplification of the fact that, deadlines notwithstanding, no piece of writing goes out until you decide its ready, so don't get too hung up on your first draft of a thing, because a lot of writers find it much easier to edit a complete work than to try and redraft as they go. It's also important to not let perfectionism or the fact your initial draft isn't coming out exactly how you want stop you from actually finishing the thing, as it's always better to have something decent and done than to have something perfect and abandoned.

But the idea of a "first draft" is also kind of a fluid one. The "first draft" you submit to someone who's commissioned you will probably be one you've already done a bunch of tweaks and edits to, as opposed to the "first draft" you pump out in a frenzy in an over-caffeinated weekend. For my part, my first drafts tend to end up a bit more polished than most, because I'm in the habit of reading my sentences out loud as I write them (a habit picked up from years of audio writing) so I'll often write and re-write a particular sentence or paragraph a few times to get the rhythm right before moving to the next one. This means my first drafts tend to take longer, but are a bit less messy. I'm also a big-time planner and pretty good at sticking to the structures I lay out so, again, tend to front load a lot of stuff so I get a better but slower first draft.

At the end of the day, though, the important thing is to get in your head about it in a good way (How do I write best? what helps me make writing I enjoy and value? What keeps me motivated?) and not in a bad way (What if it's not good enough? What if everyone hates it? What if it doesn't make sense?) so that you actually get it done.

As for how my first drafts made me feel? Terrible, every one of 'em No idea if that's reflective of their quality, though, tbh - I hate reading my own writing until I've had a chance to forget it's mine (I can only ever see the flaws). I suppose there's theoretically a none-zero chance they were pure fragments of True Art and creative perfection, but Alex's editing notes make that seem unlikely.

[veronicaleighauthor]

[physalian]

Speeding through the first draft of a new WIP with my foot glued to the gas pedal of this manuscript screaming:

“It’s ugly and I’m proud! It’s ugly and I’m proud!”

[thepalehorsevictoria]

WIP Wednesday on an actual Wednesday

I was tagged by @razildor (and probably others, RIP my notifications) for WIP, I believe.

This is the very first thing I wrote for Tara Thorne and Emmrich outside of the sea glass scene that became Coastline Variations. I had stammered into When a Mage Goes to War and Marriage, just coming off of Pater Noster, and I never finished this.

But because I am still procrastinating classwork like hell, here it is.

Gorge

(smut-free, but nsfw for Tara's use of the word 'fuck' as punctuation)

Emmrich knows it is coming, and he dreads it.

Rook gorges herself on him, reaching for him to fill her whenever she wants and he is all too happy to oblige. 

But it will end, and he will have to steel himself against the freezing chasm she will leave behind when she is bored of him. 

He doesn’t think he is strong enough to withstand it, the decades of his life spent working on his career, his craft, his un-life. 

He said it too soon. Amáta. He thought he didn’t care that she knew, but for all that she has been through, everywhere she has been, he can’t help but wonder if she will simply pick up and move on after this. 

He scoops out anything he can reach for when he is inside her, to gorge while he can like she does, even if it claws against his nature to savor, to treasure. Any time could be his last. 

“Hey. Where did you go just now?” Her fingers gently comb through the hair on his chest. She has caught him woolgathering.

Emmrich tightens his arm around her shoulders and then releases to trace a line down her side, skin soft and warm. “Nothing to burden you with, liebchen.”

Her breath puffs against his nipple. “Bullshit,” and she lifts her head from the cradle of his chest to look at him. “Your breath changes when you’re very focused on something and then you deflect with an endearment.”

Rook would be terrifying with Mourn Watch knowledge of anatomy if she can just open him up and cut right through to his beating heart so easily.

She sits up straight now, leaving his embrace, holding a sheet up to her chest. “Tell me.” Her voice has changed, focused and ready to strike. He has heard it many times now and winces that he is at the receiving end of it now.

For someone who always chooses his words carefully, he struggles with this now.

Her tenacity, however, will not leave him be. 

Deep breath. Look up from the feast laid out, and protect what you have claimed.

He stops lying to himself that he is okay with losing her. 

He’s grateful that she has removed the temptation of her breasts, her skin, and he hates it, because he knows he could be so distracted. Emmrich has worked hard to be better than his most base self. 

Deep breath. Look up. 

“I was weaving the shroud I will wear when you are tired of me.”

“What?”

He doesn’t want to be here, now, under her scalpel, and moves to sit up, but she pins his shoulder down, firmly.

“Tara, I am nearly twice your age. While I am eternally grateful that you chose me, I find myself deeply afraid for when the novelty will wear off and after you have your fill of me, you will move on. And that will be my end.”

She’s stunned. Mouth open, blinking, brow furrowed as she works to comprehend what he just said. 

“Fuck you.” It stings like a backhanded slap with a ring.

She gets up on her knees, eyes sharp, mouth set. “I thought you knew me better than that but apparently you think yourself above me. Fuck you thinking you know better than me.” Rook whips around and gets up out of the bed, pulling on her leggings and yanking her tunic over her head, not bothering with lifting her hair out from under it. 

Emmrich scrambles to sit up, heart slamming against his chest to escape the cruel cold edge coming for it. “Rook—”

“—I’m not smart like you, Emmrich, and I don’t pretend to be. But I like to think I know myself better than anyone. I said I love you. I mean it. I have told you that I want to be next to you through everything, even this—fucking thing that I don’t completely understand about lichdom, but I’m fucking trying.”

She stomps into her boots and pulls open the door to his bedchamber. 

He is too stunned to move.

Rook is straining to keep her voice down. “Done with you, fucking shit,” she spits. “What, did you think that because I said you’re my first love that I didn’t know what it would mean? Do you honestly think that fucking little of me? Because I’m twenty years younger? Fuck off.” 

She runs out of steam and winces. “I don’t want to fight with you. But I can’t be here right now,” and just like that, she’s down the large staircase and out the door. 

“Rook!”

He is left with the stone-shearing force of her pummels through him and leaves a giant gaping space in the rock he had built around himself for fear of getting hurt before he kneels under the butcher knife. 

He knows she’s gone to Lavendel, that she will work herself to exhaustion with a scythe in her hands to hack away at the bleeding, corrosive blight. He knows that Rook will wait until she’s elbow-deep in darkspawn guts before admitting that she’s tired. 

It takes him three days to catch up to her, to find her alone in the middle of a bog in the Hossberg Wetlands, chewing on hardtack and staring at the sunset. Her leathers are stained black with ichor. 

“Tara.” 

She flinches. “What are you doing here?” She takes another bite and spits it right back out with a ptoo. “This is no place for the likes of you.”

“I love a Grey Warden. My place is by her side.”

Rook scoffs, still not looking at him. Emmrich can feel the space between them lengthen, and he throws the last of his rope out in an effort to cross the chasm.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Do you think Jack and Aaron get these demos in the middle of the night and just go WHAT THE FUCK TAYLOR

[mysharona1987]

[katrinafaire]

Write That Scene Anyway

Or, no writing is wasted.

Really I do mean that. But let's start with some universal truths:

1- your story WILL change from draft to draft

sidenote: this does not necessarily mean a whole plot overworking (though it can) but you'll probably cut and add some scenes

additionally: you may also just tweak your characters once you understand them better (YMMV if you're in a series and already wrote a book with these people)

2- we don't always realize on the first pass what the super important parts are

3- you really shouldn't try to edit while you're writing your first draft (if you do, keep it small like wording, grammar, etc)

NOW, back to the advice: write that scene anyway.

We all have something that got us excited about writing our stories, right? Certain character dynamics, scenes in whole or just nebulous patches of dialogue... and maybe when you get to it you realize it belongs off screen. Or that it just doesn't fit at all! Do you abandon it?

I mean, maybe when you trim and edit your draft for round two but for your first draft?

Write it anyway. Explore that scene, test that dialogue, examine that worldbuilding or try out that conlang, just do it. Write that thing you're passionate about writing, even if you know in your heart that you won't be keeping it.

And then stick it in a trimmings file / doc / scriv / whatever (I call mine a "cutting floor" file), because no writing is ever wasted. You learned something here, you explored something important. And that knowledge, even if not in that exact form, will help you going forward.

And if somehow you didn't, and it in no way enriches your next draft?

You had fun.

No Writing Is Ever Wasted

[hermits-hovel]

🦋 curiosity

[mumblingsage]

If a narrative voice comes to you naturally, all the better. But don't sweat [narration or style]. Your job at this [first draft] stage is to mine your imagination and be spontaneous. Do not stifle that. Go with the flow. Some days you will feel like writing in a certain style, others another style will come most naturally. Embrace these differences; they are part of the process of discovery. And they help you 'live' the scenes, which is the ultimate goal of this phase.

However, sometimes your inner critic will suggest a better way to do a scene, or that you need an additional element in the plot, and you'll be grateful. But don't let it start looking for problems or things to improve. Only rewrite if your inner critic is telling you immediately, NOW, what to do. If it doesn't, leave the offending passage and press on.

-Roz Morris, Nail Your Novel

[dirty-dirty-muggle]

I love the feeling I get when I finish a first draft. It’s when I feel proudest, because before the first draft a story is a nebulous series of notes and random scenes and images in my head. After the first draft, it’s real. I wrote a real thing!

I try to celebrate such milestones because I think it’s important, especially because drafting can be really tough, lonely work (at least it is for me).

All that to say after eight months, I finally finished the first draft of my novel-length wip fic last night just before 1am, and then went and found my husband half-asleep on the couch and put my hands in the air and shouted “I’m done!” He gave me a high-five while I felt supremely pleased with myself and also like I’d just escaped prison after crawling through a shit pipe like in Shawshank Redemption. It’s real! I did the thing!

[knight0fcups]

Fic Outtake

The first draft ending to don't let me be the last to know, a treat fic for @minrathian.

-----

The screech of the sea birds gathering for the night echo across Dock Town, and as the sun sets across the waters of the harbor, they are both struck speechless as they consider, for the first time, that one, or both of them, might want the other.

“You’re not really what I go for,” Tarquin declares. “No interest in rich boys or Chantry pricks or people in masks.”

“Ah, well, that settles it,” replies Ashur. “Pity,” he continues, just to himself.

Tarquin cranes his neck toward Ashur, eyes narrowed. “I heard that. What do you mean by ‘Pity?’ What’s a pity?”

“Does it matter? I’m not your type.”

“Exceptions can be made.”

Brown eyes lock on blue as each mind tallies, separately, the mountain of accumulated evidence—the lingering looks and fleeting touches and unwitting commentary suggestive of something else. Ashur’s lips spread slowly in a smile and the creases at Tarquin’s brow grow deeper.

“You should have said something,” says Ashur.

“You should have said something,” Tarquin retorts. “What if I told you and you laughed at me?”

“I don’t have a death wish.”

“Nobody does the things you do without one.”

“Quin…” chuckles Ashur.

“You are insufferable.” Tarquin seizes Ashur by the collar and throws himself into the kiss. Ashur catches him and leans into the kiss eagerly, like a man starved. A hand presses into the small of Tarquin’s back, then strokes upward over the gentle curve of his spine. 

“So…” whispers Ashur, breath mingling hot and rapid between their barely parted lips.

“So…” 

“What are you doing tonight?”

“You, I think,” Tarquin replies.

[veronicaleighauthor]

[geeky-roleplayer]

Are there any aspiring authors who want to be mutuals & talk about our manuscripts together? I'd love to beta-read for you and offer constructive feedback.

I'm trying to finish the first draft of my manuscript before the end of the year, and having an open conversation about the process really helps!

[nanowrimo]

How to Find Hope for Completing Your Writing Goals

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Campfire, a 2023 NaNoWriMo sponsor, is a writing and worldbuilding platform to help you create an immersive experience benefitting both authors and readers. Today, Campfire Community Manager Emory Glass shares some words on having hope when writing feels overwhelming:

It has been 3,265 days since I won NaNoWriMo. I was 16 and wrote 75,000 words. It was exhilarating and cathartic and everything I ever dreamt of.

Tomorrow it will be 3,266 days since I won NaNoWriMo. I look back on my projects thinking, “2,500 words a day is lightspeed. The words flowed so freely then, so quickly.” I want to be a writer–I am a writer. It is my identity, my purpose, my reason, yet I cannot bring myself to finish what I have begun.

The next day it will have been 3,267 days since I won NaNoWriMo. The words do not fly from my fingertips but crawl, sapped of energy, the page a grave for ink stains posing as letters. I talk to my characters often. My writer friends tell me I speak of them as if they were real people, but I cannot seem to lift the weight of their stories from my mind. Still, I have no platform, no audience, no one eagerly watching for the next installment.

The day after it will have been 3,268 days since I won NaNoWriMo. Two publications, no published novels, hundreds of thousands of words gathering dust. I am no writer, I am a collector of words. There must be something wrong with me. I have so much to tell, so much to share, so much to create, but here I am not telling, not sharing, not creating.

One day it will have been 3,269 days since I won NaNoWriMo. I will not have published a book, I will not have a new story, I will not have an audience or a platform or one–just one–person looking forward to what happens next.

But I will not give up.

"...and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

It's rather typical for a dark fantasy writer to peer into the void, but it quickly becomes an intoxication and an excuse to never move a muscle. Do not succumb. Push forward, even if you barely move an inch. If you wish to be a builder, you build. If you wish to be a fighter, you fight. If you wish to be a writer, you write.

Brute force seems barbaric. Should words not spill onto the page? It is said that art cannot be coerced or bent to one's own will; it comes easily, naturally, swiftly. The very best art is created in a creative frenzy, so they say, and the very best artists are recognized in memoriam.

But if you delay and evade and wither your ambition as you count the days since your last success, your oeuvre halts and is buried and perishes by your own hand. So if you, like me, too often find yourself peering into the void where the words have gone to fade away, cleave to the remedy for its gaze: hope. This is the heart of creation. Laudation and lucrativeness are but two measures of success. They will not themselves burst a dam of words within you and imbue every project with Midas' touch. Creative fever is not catching–you must seek it out.

Give yourself a reason to write even when you do not want to or it feels too Herculean a task. If you seek new horizons, a useful tool, or a supportive community to accompany you on this odyssey, enlist Campfire to help. Whether it behooves you to squeeze out words on your mobile device, stay focused offline with a desktop application, or keep inspiration at hand via browser-based work and Discord chats, it's the best place to bring your stories to life.

NaNoWriMo participants can save on Campfire’s writing software! Use the discount code LETSGONANO23 for 30% off your first year of an annual subscription to our Standard Plan. It’s free to create an account. Offer expires March 31, 2024.

Emory Glass is an avid artist, worldbuilder, and author with a passion for strong female characters in leading roles and meticulous attention to detail in lore. She loves tea, learning Scottish Gaelic, continuing her work on The Chroma Books, a series of interconnected stories, and running Inkblood Book Company for similarly enthusiastic dark fantasy writers. When not chasing down stories, Emory works as the Community Manager at Campfire.

Top photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash.

[waxalas]

Somniloquy first drafts be like:

"Kira?"

"Were you worried it was a dream?"

L feels blah blah blah

"I don't dream about you."