Last night I was working on the third draft of my latest short story, and I thought it might be interesting to share how I approach my drafting process. Is it the best/most effective? Probably not, but it’s a process I have stuck to for the past few years and that has helped me take my stories from What the hell was I thinking? to Hey, that doesn’t suck.

For a typical writing project, I normally go through two or three drafts before I share it with others for feedback or publication submission. To some, three drafts may seem like a lot. To others, not nearly enough. I know some writers may go through a number of drafts before they ultimately decided their story is ready to leave the bird’s nest and take flight. I’ve certainly had projects that have taken more than three drafts to get into decent shape, but I find three is normally the average.

To keep these blog post short and sweet, I thought I would discuss each draft in separate posts. So here goes the first.

Draft 1: Finger Paints, Stick Drawings, and Mud

Unless you are some kind of prodigy, the first draft of your work–be it a poem, a short story, a novel, or even a blog post–is going to be crap. And that’s ok, let your writing be crap. It may not be perfect. It may not be what you envisioned. But it’s the first step toward getting it there. 

For the latest short story I wrote, my first draft was a mess. By the time I was done writing it, the story was written in two separate documents, every character had several names, and some of its plot points were nonsensical, often times contradicting eachother.

I’m here to tell you, if that sounds like any of your first drafts, that’s okay. Writing is re-writing. The point of the first draft is to simply get your story out of your head, without worrying too much about how it reads, how it presents. The first draft is for no one but yourself. Personally, I don’t let anyone see my work (even for feedback) until I’m completed with my second draft.

Giving myself permission to write a shitty first draft takes a lot of the pressure off from writing. Writing and storytelling, especially creative writing, should be fun. And the first draft should be nothing but fun. It should feel like you’re a kid again, messing around with finger paints, stick drawings, and mud. That is what the first draft should feel like.

Let me know what you think of this approach to the first draft of a story. Do you agree or do you have a different approach? Let me know in the comments.