This is something I've seen said quite a lot, especially in online writing groups - that it doesn't matter if your first draft is terrible, it's expected to be. Everyone's is.
But what does that mean exactly?
"Terrible" or "Awful" or whatever adjective you want to use, are very subjective terms. Does this mean your first draft should be totally unreadable? Or when people say this, are they talking about anything more specific?
if you search for this on the internet, you'll come across many different opinions on the matter. So, just to muddy the waters further, here is mine:
Your first draft should not be awful. It should still be readable and form a mostly coherent story. But, it's easy to get into the bad habit of comparing your first drafts or unfinished work, with the final published drafts of others. It's not an easy thing to stop. It's very natural to compare yourself to others. But you need to remember that those other works you are comparing yours against have been through many drafts themselves, been edited many times by the author and professional editors, and likely that published author (if it's a traditionally published book) has a lot of talent for writing, or they wouldn't have been picked up for publish. You, as an indie/hobbyist writer, are probably near the beginning of your journey. You simply can't compare even your own finished work, to the finished work of professional authors. Well, you can, but it won't do you any good.
If I'd read back through my first draft of "As Shadows Burn" and compared it to the published work of someone like Joe Abercrombie or Brandon Sanderson, I would have binned the thing right there and then and given up, because there is simply no comparison.
So, the most important thing to remember to start with, is don't compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to yourself. If you can look back at your old work and see that your new work is better, you are making progress, and that's all that matters.
There will be outliers whose first drafts only need a little bit of polishing and they are basically ready to go. But screw those guys. No-one likes them, anyway.
What don't you need to worry about?
All that being said, there are various things that you shouldn't worry about during your first draft:
- Grammar/Spelling - This doesn't matter at all in the first draft. You can fix it up later.
- Word choices - If you can't think of the right word you want in a specific place, or you can't think of a name for someone/something, it's perfectly acceptable to just leave a placeholder. I do it all the time. In the book I'm writing at the moment, people have a kind of high-tech laptops with hologram screens, and in my first draft they are called "{computer thing}". You can come up with something later. I would recommend highlighting them though, so they are easy to find.
- Fully fleshed out story threads - Whilst the overarching story should be relatively fleshed out (ie. it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, which tie together), all the sub plot and other threads don't have to be there straight away. It's common to change your mind about things as you are writing and change how something goes. For example, you might initially have a sub plot about a man who works in a tavern and stumbles on a dead body. You might have a few chapters about it already. Then you decide actually you think he should be a guard working at the king's palace and the dead body should be a prisoner who mysteriously drops dead. You don't need to go back and re-write those first chapters right away, you can just plough on as if you had already done so, and go back and fix it later. Just make sure you keep notes of what you want to change.
- Polished prose/dialogue - Your sentences and dialogue don't have to sound that great yet. Sure, by draft 4 or 5 your sentence might read something like "Shards of silver light broke through the clouds like knives, stabbing at the earth". But in the earlier drafts it's perfectly fine to be "Light broke through the clouds". The later drafts are for polishing. Don't worry about it yet.
- Pacing - Some chapters will be fast and filled with action. Others will be slow and a bit boring. Just write them for now. You can go through it all later and see what works and what needs to be changed.
- Character voice - You won't really get to "know" the voice of your characters right away. It will take some time of writing their dialogue and thoughts, before you know the sorts of ways they might speak. So, in the first draft, it's absolutely fine for everyone to sound the same.
Drafting Process
Okay, so I know now roughly what my first draft should be like, but what about second draft? And how many drafts should I be doing?
That will depend on you and your process, which you will develop over time. I can give you my process and you can see how it works for you. But go at your own pace, and see what works for you.
Here is how I do it (usually).
(I should note that as a programmer career-wise, we tend to start our numbering at 0 not 1. So, you'll find my first draft is actually Draft 0).
- Draft 0 - First draft - Used to be hand-written, but these days typed up. Not worried about all the bits I mentioned earlier. Just get the story out and take notes on anything I want to go back and change.
- Draft 1 - Changes - This is where I go back through all my notes and make those changes. Still not worried about spelling/grammar and all those other bits.
- READER FEEDBACK - Get a couple of people to read through and see what they think of the main storyline (i.e.. is it interesting?).
- Draft 2 - Feedback fixes - Fix any issues raised in the feedback, regarding the overall story.
- Draft 3 - Character draft - This is where I go through and try to give the characters more unique voices, now that I've been writing them for quite a while.
- READER FEEDBACK - Get a few more people to give me some feedback. This time on the story and the characters.
- Draft 4 - Cut - This is where I cut out things which don't fit or I've decided I don't want, and try to reduce the word count by at least 10%ish.
- Draft 5 - Polish - This is where I start to polish the prose and dialogue to improve the general quality of the writing, and make sure all the storylines are coherent and tied together.
- READER FEEDBACK - More feedback, this time a bit more general on the whole story.
- Draft 6+ - Continued Polishing - Any drafts from 6 and above focus on more polishing of storylines and writing quality, to try and tighten things up and improve anything from the feedback.
That process might work for you. It might not. But there it is, if it's of any use.
Conclusion / TLDR
So overall:
- No, your first draft shouldn't be absolutely awful, but there are lots of things you don't need to worry about just yet
- Try not to compare yourself to others. Just focus on your own progress/journey
- Develop your own drafting process over time to suit your needs
Hopefully, that is of some help to someone.
