I have no shame with sharing the first draft of anything I write, and that’s a problem, because sharing too early destroyed the first draft of my most recent novel.
Context: A couple of months ago I finished out my “College Experience,” coming out of the ordeal with a relationship to caffeine that can, on the best of days, be diagnosed as co-dependence. That and a hard fought, solid, submission-ready manuscript. And believe me, the emphasis in that sentence should be put on hard fought, I bled for this project. And, out of the many lessons it so lovingly taught me, the biggest had to be that the first draft is only for your eyes. Dummy.
This project started in the middle of 2016, while I was taking the Advanced Young Adult course at school. For this course, I had to write ten pages a week for my novel and share it with two other critique partners. I also had to submit the weakest twenty pages of my novel to a class of twenty-four people, all of whom were tasked with giving very extensive commentary. Plus, the professor was actively giving me feedback every week as well. Needless to say, there were a lot of eyes looking over my shoulder. Lots of opinions too.
In the interest of trying to please the vast majority of the populace, I over wrote ever loving purple prose out of that monster. And I was so proud of myself, too. Look at this thing I made, people like this thing. Didn’t matter if I liked how it turned out because boy-oh-boy I sure liked pleasing people with it.
I finished the draft a couple of months after the course ended and, after a spit-shine second draft, decided that it is Good Enough(TM). Like, it’s fine. I’m sure it’s great. There’s a huge stretch in the middle where I’m just describing trees in as many ways as I can come up with, but I’m probably over thinking it. It’s well researched. People like it when things are well researched.
So, I decided to do a directed study with my favorite professor. I gave him the manuscript thinking he was going to give me a couple of small polishes and we’d get to work putting together the publishing package. He handed me back the first five pages and told me, “You know better.” Not “this is smelly garbage,” not “you’ll never make it in show business.” Worse. “You know better.” I swear I still wake up in the middle of the night with those words echoing in my ears.
His notes told me what I already knew. The narrative was unfocused and over-saturated. It was worse than a people-pleaser, it was a doormat. And it somehow still ended up being pretentious in the process. So many conflicts could be “left up to interpretation,” so many settings were “written like poetry,” so many characters were “morally ambiguous.” He didn’t even look at the rest. He didn’t need to. He got me to work on rewriting the whole frickin’ thing.
The experienced writer probably predicted the conclusion of this tale after I basically said I was co-writing it with a room full of undergrads. Had I written the draft in solitude, as the good Lord intended, I would have come out with a rough draft. Something that would eventually be ready to show to critique partners.
Here’s why.
*First drafts are for fun.
Maybe I’m alone in this, but the first draft is my favorite because I couldn’t care less about what anyone else wants. I’m writing for me, chumps. I can cram in all the deus ex-machinas, artistic snobbery, and tooth-rotting sugary friendship moments that I please. The end result is always, without fail, somewhere between badly written reality TV show and a Marvel Movie, and screw me if I don’t love every trashy minute of it. It’s when I have to share it with people that it all goes wrong.
Enjoy your first draft. Enjoy being in love with your work just because you created it. And then, when you’re ready, invite people in. You’re going to have to give up some of the things you loved about that first draft along the way. Just…cherish it while it’s yours.
*You’re still exploring the story on your first draft.
I don’t care if you’re a planner or a pantser, you don’t know where the story is going. You know what you want to happen, you don’t know if that’s actually the way it’s going to go. The first draft is your opportunity to spend time with your characters, to really feel things out. This is the draft you experiment in. Just through in some grenades, problematic love interests, and a little bit of nutmeg. See what works.
*Getting feedback mid-way through your first draft is begging to be stuck in an endless editing loop.
This is the same reason a lot of writers won’t even read their first draft until it’s done, seconding guessing is editing work. It’s already hard enough to sit down and write the dang thing, don’t shoot yourself in the foot by doing the writing cha-cha.
There will always be things to fix. Always. And so, you write something and read it immediately afterward. You fix it. You read it again. You fix it again. Soon enough you’ve Benjamin Buttoned a manuscript that never made it past page three to begin with.
Take your inner editor, make them a sandwich, lock them in a closet somewhere. You come across the urge to show the draft to someone else, take that person and lock them up too. Don’t worry. They can share.
I’m getting preachy at this point so let me leave you with the game plan. Write your first draft. Love it. Let it sit. Revisit it. Change what you want to change. Then share.
Nikki Macahon lives in suburban Chicago. Her pastimes include pondering the evolution of media consumption with the advent of online streaming and throwing crumpled receipts at her cat. Follow her @nikmacpattywak.
Nikki’s short story, “Ann,” appears in Black FoxIssue 16.
