Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A What do sentences look like in a rough draft before they are combined into a cumulative sentence?

Sophistication and polish and complexity are not for the first draft. Period. Your first draft is meant to be the rough, crappy one. It's getting your ideas out. You are letting the perfect become...

posted 7y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:46Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30435
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T07:03:44Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30435
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T07:03:44Z (almost 5 years ago)
Sophistication and polish and complexity are not for the first draft. Period.

Your first draft is _meant_ to be the rough, crappy one. It's getting your ideas out. You are letting the perfect become the enemy of the good —&nbsp;you're so worried about making it awesome that you aren't allowing yourself to make anything at all.

Do not worry about your diction.

Do not worry about efficiency.

They are not the point in a first draft.

First drafts can be littered with TK (meaning "to come"), [TECH], "angry dialogue here," EXPLAIN PLAN, and so on. You can have actual placeholders and _not write a chunk of the scene at all_ if that helps you get your entire draft on paper so you can work with it.

Stop fussing and write.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-09-27T01:47:14Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 3