I’ve made no secret about the fact that–for me–building a story from scratch is much harder than making one beautiful. This is partly because I’m a recovering perfectionist. Partly because my best ideas don’t tend to show up until I’ve sunk a lot of time and energy into a story, which doesn’t translate into smooth, easy first drafts. And partly because making something from nothing is intimidating and hard.
As I’ve worked to better understand my own writing process over the last several years, I’ve also struggled to improve how I draft. Although I know I can’t go back to my early, effortless days as a writer, when I wasn’t knowledgeable or experienced enough to know how bad my first drafts were, I have come up with some strategies that have improved both my drafting process and my drafts themselves.
In no particular order, here’s a short rundown of what those strategies are, what they involve, and how they help.
1) Rachel Aaron’s “Productivity Triangle”
Rachel’s blog post turned e-book is so ubiquitous that you’ve probably already heard of it, but on the off chance you’ve haven’t I’ve include links to both. Basically, she posits and proves that it’s possible to write first drafts quickly and (relatively) cleanly if you:
a) know in advance what you’re writing that day
b) know approximately what time of day is when you do your best work and how long you can work before your writing quality suffers
c) are excited about or invested in every part of your story
I don’t adhere as strictly to this Knowledge + Time + Emotion = Output formula as Rachel herself does, but using it as a guideline instead of a hard and fast rule has still done me and my writing a world of good.
Knowing what my next scene involves, what my entry point into that scene is, and what the specific conflict and stakes within that scene are has repeatedly saved me from floundering through multiple false starts and wasting hundreds or thousands of words that don’t contribute to the story in any meaningful way. Setting Freedom, my trusty web blocker, to run for an hour–the average amount of writing time I can manage before my focus inevitably wanes–and getting up early enough to do some writing before work when my brain is still fresh helps me write faster and focus better. And giving myself permission to re-do or skip scenes that don’t interest me or work well has reduced my procrastination significantly and lead to more frequent productive writing days for me.
2) Time blocking (or time goals)
Back when I was a writer who didn’t care about the quality of my drafts, I found it easy to set and meet word count goals. But as I shifted my focus to writing better, more intentional first drafts–and digging my way out of a mental health crisis–I found that word count goals put way too much pressure on me.
Instead, I started setting a timer and/or activating Freedom for 30-60 minutes and doing productive, focused work for the whole span of time. I still do this when I’m brainstorming, problem solving, or blocked, and I find it incredibly helpful. Actively putting words on the page isn’t the only productive part of writing, and time blocking helps me remember that.
3) Process goals
A process goal, by my definition, is a goal centered around reaching a certain point in your story or a certain story milestone within a set period of time. Lately, I’ve been aiming to finish 1-2 chapters between Monday and Friday each week, but you could shoot for finishing scenes or pieces of scenes or even setting up scenes.
If you’re looking to push yourself a little harder and increase your drafting pace, process goals can provide a nice middle ground between more generous time goals and more strenuous word count goals.
4) Rewards
Even though writing is hard work and external validation occurs infrequently at best, it honestly never occurred to me to give myself small rewards for meeting my writing goals until recently. This may sound sort of wishy-washy or unimportant to you–it did to me for a long time–but I’ve found it surprisingly helpful. Even if you’re pretty self-motivated, *raises hand* the anticipation of a reward can provide an additional boost.
So long as you’re not setting totally unrealistic goals, giving yourself extravagant rewards, or rewarding yourself regardless of whether you meet your goals or not, you’ll probably find this helpful. At the very least, you’ll feel less like you’re still a long, unending slog from the end of your story, or from having something to celebrate.
5) Editing as I go
I recently wrote a whole post about why I find it so helpful to edit while I draft, so I won’t re-invent the wheel here. What I will say is that giving myself the freedom to pause when the writing gets hard, step back, and problem solve has improved my attitude toward my first drafts significantly, which has encouraged me to keep working.
The only way out when you’re drafting is through, after all. 🙂
Are there any tips or tricks you’ve found especially helpful to make writing a first draft easier? Let me know in the comments.