The initial, unpolished version of your story where you get everything out of your head and onto the page.
A first draft is the earliest complete version of a manuscript, written with the primary goal of getting the story down rather than getting it right. It's often messy, inconsistent, and full of placeholder scenes or notes to yourself. The point isn't perfection; it's existence. You can't revise a blank page, so the first draft is simply about giving yourself something to work with.
Every published novel started as a first draft that probably embarrassed its author. Understanding that a rough draft is supposed to be rough frees you from the perfectionism that kills most writing projects before they ever get finished. The first draft is where you discover what your story is actually about, which is almost never what you thought it was about when you started.
Fitzgerald's first draft was originally titled 'Trimalchio' and had a substantially different structure. His editor Maxwell Perkins pushed him through multiple revisions that transformed it into the tight novel we know today.
King advocates writing the first draft 'with the door closed,' meaning no feedback, no second-guessing, just you and the story. He recommends finishing it in about three months.
Kuang wrote the first draft as an undergraduate thesis project, then spent years revising it into the published epic fantasy. The bones of the story survived, but the execution transformed entirely.
Resist the urge to polish Chapter 1 twenty times before writing Chapter 2. Get the whole story down first, then revise. You'll cut scenes anyway once you see the full picture.
A first draft is raw material, not a finished manuscript. Give yourself permission to write badly. The magic happens in revision.
Every writer hits a wall around the middle. Push through with placeholder scenes, bracket notes like [FIGURE OUT THIS PART LATER], or skip ahead to a scene you're excited about.
Showing your rough draft to people before you've had a chance to revise can be demoralizing. Let it rest, do at least one revision pass, then share.
Set a timer for 15 minutes and write the opening scene of a story you've been thinking about. Do not stop typing. Do not delete anything. Do not reread what you've written. If you get stuck, write 'I don't know what happens next but maybe...' and keep going. When the timer ends, highlight one sentence that surprised you. That's your story's real starting point.