WHAT IS A FIRST DRAFT?

A first draft is a horrible thing.

The first draft of anything is sh*t.

Ernest Hemingway

Writing, and especially publishing, is filled with anachronistic terms and phrases. Like many industries, I’m sure people use out-of-date phrases in order to heighten the mystique. It might even be used to exclude those who haven’t been educated in the rarified atmospheres of ‘good’ universities. Might.

So, the “first draft.” As one person said to me once, it’s “telling yourself the story.” And in a way, they’re right. If you’re writing a novel, or even a short story, you don’t really know how it’s going to look until you’ve written it. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been writing a full-length novel, and then realised that there’s not enough ‘story’ in it to complete it, or that the story I had in my head isn’t what’s coming out in the manuscript. I’m my own harshest critic. 

So let’s say you’ve fought these inner demons and doubts caused by imposter syndrome, and you’ve finished the story. Brilliant! Send it off to be printed / entered into a competition?

Errr… NO!

Remember Hemingway’s statement, above. He knew a thing or two about writing did old Ernest. What you do is you put the story to one side – in a drawer, or closed off in a folder on your laptop. 

DON’T LOOK AT IT! 

What this does is to give you, the writer, ‘some distance’ from your writing. This is a fact – if you turn to edit a story too quickly, your mind sees what you think that you, the writer, should have written. Your mind ’sees’ the manuscript you wrote in your head, and not what you put on paper / in a file.

How long should I put the manuscript away?

It depends. In theory, the longer the better. I’ve come across old stories, written years ago, that I don’t even recognise as mine! But how long you put the manuscript away is entirely up to you, and how well you can ’step away’ from the writing, and what you intend to do with the story when it’s finished, and whether that has a deadline to it.

And my key message – when you start reviewing your first draft, BE HONEST! Read it like you would any other piece of writing.
Are there spelling and punctuation mistakes? Don’t assume an editor will fix them for you!
Does the opening spend too much time on description of landscapes or the weather?
Does the story move along at pace, or is it dreary and slow?
Does the key message of the story, the key theme, come through in the writing?
Does the ending round things up nicely, and provide a satisfying conclusion?

These are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself before moving forward with the story.

AND DON’T BE AFRAID TO DITCH THE STORY IF IT DOESN’T WORK.

I have done, MANY TIMES!