90-Mile-an-Hour First Drafts
A screenwriter friend once told me she always aims to write "90-mile-an-hour first drafts." I’ve learned to appreciate this approach, and I’ve been thinking about what prevents many writers from writing fast first drafts. Three things come to mind: 1) Not setting up a regular routine to get the work done. 2) Not having other friendly writers to check in with while engaged in a writing routine. 3) Believing that “not knowing what comes next” is a reason not to write. Scheduling time and showing up to do the work of drafting is the only way manuscripts get written. Most writers appreciate some witnessing of this sometimes hard, lonely work. Checking in with fellow writers—to celebrate progress or commiserate over the lack thereof—buoys a writer’s motivation to keep going. That touches on numbers one and two. But for the rest of this note, I’d like to unpack what might be going on under the surface of number three. We are so used to not acting until we know the next step to take. But creativity doesn’t work like that. Especially when it comes to writing first drafts. Yes, you can take some time to develop your story, and you can sketch out a loose or even detailed outline, but until you get to the page, the story doesn’t have a chance of flowing into a first draft. Pausing the process because of not knowing what comes next usually hides a fear of losing control or making a mess. But that’s what a first draft is meant to be! That’s how we find our stories. We can’t know what a story’s true potential is until we finish a first draft. It’s sometimes called a discovery draft, because first we have to tell ourselves the story and discover what we—and the story—want to say. We find our answers for what to do next on the page. Why do we find it so hard to trust this part of the process? I think it’s because many writers subconsciously nurture, and fantasize about, a deep fear and a great hope. We are so plagued by self-doubt and self-judgement that to begin a draft (and finish it) means having to confront “whether it’s good or not.” The deep fear is that whatever we create will be horrible or, perhaps worse, mediocre. The great hope simmering under the surface is that whatever we create will be amazing, rank as a bestseller or blockbuster, and inspire and impress our friends and family, and, really, the world. The power of this fantasy keeps the prospect of writing (and finishing) off on a distant horizon of promising potential. While there does exist the possibility of such a hope or fear coming true, the probability is that neither will. But you’ll never know unless you finish a draft or two or ten. So you might as well free yourself up to write that horrible first draft, then the mediocre one, while you aim for the amazing. But do it on the page, not in the background of your mind. And when you finally give yourself permission to write something horrible, why not do it quickly? Same with mediocre. And if your hope comes true and you do write something amazing, wouldn’t you like to experience that sooner than later? Ninety-mile-an-hour first drafts get your story on the page quickly, messily, and roughly. It’s what you do with it after that counts. The revision process can polish a diamond in the rough, but until the whole stone is unearthed, you can’t know what potentially brilliant shape your story could be. You must tell yourself the story first, the whole story, not just the parts that feel safe, controlled, and known. The blank page will hold you and guide you if you trust it—and trust yourself—to write into the unknown territory. Ninety miles per hour can feel exhilaratingly fast, but it’s doable. You can do it. I encourage you to give up your Sunday drive drafts and hop on the autobahn. You can meander in revision if you feel like it, once you have discovered the whole story you’re trying to tell yourself. Write over the speed limit,
P.S. If you’d like to get a first draft done by the end of the year, I’ll be hosting another 12-week Drafting Circle this fall, starting Sept 19th. (Apply here.) This three-month program is steadily paced and manageable. Many writers have completed first drafts in this timeframe.
P.P.S. Those wanting to go even faster might want to try Nanowrimo in November, during which you write an entire novel in a month, or, if you're up for breaking some sound barriers, you could try the upcoming 3-day novel writing contest.
