Writing Your First Draft: Permission to Be Terrible

There is a moment in every novelist's life when the outline is finished, the research is done, the character sketches are complete, and there is absolutely nothing left to do except write the actual book. This is the moment most people quit.

Not because they lack ideas. Not because they lack talent. But because the gap between the story in their head and the words on the screen feels unbridgeable. The first sentence is never good enough. The first page doesn't sound like a real novel. The first chapter reads like a rough summary of a better book they haven't figured out how to write yet.

Here's the truth that every published author knows: your first draft is supposed to be bad. Not mediocre. Not "rough around the edges." Actually, genuinely, sometimes embarrassingly bad. And that's not a flaw in the process - it is the process.

Why Perfectionism Is the Enemy

Perfectionism disguises itself as high standards. It whispers that you should get it right the first time, that real writers produce clean prose in their initial pass, that if the words aren't flowing easily, you're doing something wrong.

Every part of this is a lie.

Ernest Hemingway's first drafts were, by his own admission, terrible. He famously said that "the first draft of anything is garbage" (in slightly more colorful language). Raymond Chandler wrote scenes out of order and stitched them together later. Toni Morrison described her drafting process as "trying to find the story in a fog."

The first draft isn't the book. It's the raw material from which the book will eventually be carved. You cannot edit a blank page. You can edit a bad page.

The Internal Editor Problem

When you write and edit simultaneously, you're asking your brain to do two contradictory things: generate new material and critically evaluate it. These are different cognitive modes, and switching between them constantly is exhausting and slow. It's like trying to accelerate and brake at the same time.

The solution is to separate the two processes. Draft first. Edit later. This doesn't mean you should never look back at what you've written - it means you shouldn't let looking back prevent you from moving forward.

Momentum Over Quality

The single most important thing about a first draft is forward motion. Not beautiful sentences. Not perfect dialogue. Not flawless pacing. Forward motion.

Here's why: when you maintain momentum, you stay connected to the story's emotional current. You know what your characters want, you can feel the tension building, you understand the rhythm of the narrative. When you stop for days or weeks to perfect a chapter, you lose that connection, and getting it back is much harder than you'd expect.

Daily Word Count Goals

Many writers set daily word count targets - 500 words, 1,000 words, 2,000 words. The specific number matters less than the consistency. A writer who produces 500 words every day will have a complete draft in six months. A writer who waits for inspiration and writes 3,000 words once a week will take longer and produce less cohesive work.

Pick a target that's low enough to hit on your worst day. If 1,000 words feels right on a good day, set your target at 500. The goal is to never miss a day, not to impress yourself on the days when writing feels easy.

The Two-Day Rule

If you can't write every day - and many people can't - adopt the two-day rule: never skip two days in a row. One day off is rest. Two days off is the beginning of a habit. Three days off and you'll need to re-read your last chapter just to remember where you were.

Practical Strategies That Actually Work

Writing Out of Order

Nobody said you have to start at chapter one. If you can see a scene vividly - maybe the climax, maybe a confrontation in the middle, maybe a quiet moment that reveals character - write that scene now. You can figure out how to connect the pieces later.

Writing out of order has a hidden benefit: it gives you anchor points. When you sit down to write the bridge between two existing scenes, you know exactly where you're headed. That knowledge makes the connecting material much easier to produce.

Using Placeholders

Stuck on a character's name? Call them [NAME] and keep going. Can't figure out the layout of the castle? Write [DESCRIBE CASTLE LATER] and move to the next paragraph. Need to research a historical detail? Drop a [CHECK THIS] marker and push forward.

Placeholders are one of the most underused tools in a drafter's toolkit. They let you maintain momentum without sacrificing accuracy - you're acknowledging that a detail needs work while refusing to let it stop your progress.

Writing Sprints

Set a timer for 20 or 25 minutes. Write as fast as you can without stopping. When the timer goes off, take a five-minute break. Repeat.

Sprint writing works because it turns off the internal editor through sheer speed. When you're racing against a clock, you don't have time to second-guess word choices or restructure sentences. You just write. And you'll be surprised how much usable material comes out of these sessions.

The "Good Enough" Scene

Not every scene needs to be your best work in the first draft. Some scenes are structural necessities - they move the character from point A to point B, deliver a piece of information, or set up a later payoff. In your first draft, it's perfectly fine to write these scenes in a functional, workmanlike way and save your energy for the scenes that excite you.

You can always come back and elevate a "good enough" scene in revision. But you can't revise a scene that doesn't exist.

Finding Your Voice on the Page

One of the unexpected gifts of the first draft is discovering your voice. Voice isn't something you can plan or outline - it emerges through the act of writing. It's the specific way you arrange words, the rhythm of your sentences, the observations your narrator makes that no other narrator would.

Many writers find that their voice doesn't fully appear until chapter three or four. The first few chapters are often throat-clearing - the writer warming up, finding their register, settling into the story. This is normal. Don't panic if the opening chapters feel flat. They'll come alive in revision once you know what your voice actually sounds like.

Let Characters Sound Different

A common first-draft problem is characters who all sound like the author. They use the same vocabulary, the same sentence structures, the same patterns of thought. Don't worry about fixing this in the first draft - just be aware of it.

As you write, start noticing the small differences between how your characters think and speak. One character might use short, clipped sentences. Another might ramble. One might be precise with language. Another might reach for metaphors. These differences will become clearer as you spend more time with each character, and you can sharpen them in revision.

Dealing with the Messy Middle

Around the 30,000-word mark, something happens to almost every first-time novelist: the initial excitement fades, the ending still feels far away, and the draft starts to feel like a chore. This is sometimes called "the saggy middle," and it's the single biggest reason first drafts get abandoned.

Here's how to push through:

Remember why you started

Go back to your original premise. Reread your outline (if you have one). Remind yourself what excited you about this story. Sometimes the middle feels bad not because the story is bad, but because you've been staring at it too long to see its strengths.

Introduce something unexpected

If the middle is dragging, your story might need a complication you didn't plan for. A new character. A revelation. A betrayal. Something that disrupts the pattern and forces both you and your protagonist to react. The best middles are the ones where everything changes.

Lower your standards (seriously)

The middle of a first draft is where "permission to be terrible" matters most. If a chapter needs to exist but you can't figure out how to make it interesting, write the boring version. Write it in summary form if you have to. Write "something happens here that makes them realize X" and move on. You can fix it later. You cannot fix nothing.

When Is the Draft "Done"?

A first draft is done when you've told the complete story from beginning to end - even if some scenes are rough, some chapters are too short, and the ending doesn't quite land yet. Done doesn't mean good. Done means complete enough to revise.

Some signs your first draft is finished:

• Your protagonist's arc is visible, even if it's not perfectly executed. They start in one state and end in another.
• The major plot points are in place. The inciting incident, the midpoint, the climax - they exist, even if they need work.
• You can read from beginning to end and follow the story, even if some transitions are clunky.
• You feel a mixture of pride and horror. Pride because you wrote an entire novel. Horror because you can see how much work it still needs. This is the correct emotional state.

What Happens Next

Once your first draft is complete, the best thing you can do is nothing. Put it away. Don't look at it for at least two weeks - ideally a month. Work on something else. Read other people's novels. Live your life.

When you come back, you'll see the manuscript with fresh eyes. Passages you thought were brilliant will reveal their weaknesses. Scenes you thought were terrible will turn out to have surprising strengths. And you'll be able to approach revision with the critical distance that makes editing actually productive.

Your first draft gave you the clay. Now you get to sculpt.