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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27539
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27539
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There is a lamentable process by which averages become aphorisms. That is, we see a common pattern and turn it into an absolute rule. Adverbs are often used badly, so don't use adverbs at all. Writers often tell when they should show, so always show, never tell. This is, essentially, lazy thinking, a desire to rule a complex world with simple rules.

Most first drafts suck. This is hardly surprising. A novel is one of the most complex constructs in all of art, so it is hard to get it right the first time. There are many ways for a book to be bad, and a first draft may display any of them. If an author cannot hold all the threads of art and craft in their heads as they write, and most can't, then something will be bad about the first draft. But not necessarily one thing in particular. It all depends on which thread the writer let drop.

Most crafts are not like this. A good cook gets most dishes right the first time. Many crafts practice simple motions over and over until they are performed reliably and automatically. But writing is too complex for most writers to do this. There are certainly many elements of craft you can hone and perhaps even perfect over time but to reduce a world and its people and it hopes, loves, and intrigues to a single sequence of words sustained over three of four hundred pages, is beyond the capability of most mortals, and so most books are the product of progressive refinement.

Does this mean that all first drafts necessarily and automatically suck? Not at all. An experienced and gifted storyteller may well turn out an excellent first draft. That does not necessarily mean flawless or incapable of improvement, but it could certainly be excellent. (If _Go Set a Watchman_ is indeed an early draft of _To Kill a Mockingbird_, it is also an excellent novel in its own right.)

The danger of this doctrine is that it leads people to advise, essentially, that you should rush through your first draft thoughtlessly, as if it were an unpleasant chore, and as if no opportunity to create quality work existed until after the first draft is complete. This is bollocks. We should strive to do the best work we can at all times. But the first draft is special. It is the last time we will have a blank slate, the chance to map out the pure lines of story unencumbered by an accumulation of prose or of scenes we may struggle to part with. The first draft is the foundation on which all will be built. It should be as good as we can possibly make it.

Original score: 19