- Joined
- Mar 15, 2019
This is more for when you already have a solid idea that you want to write out as opposed to spur of the moment scribbles, but fucking rough draft.
The reason I’ve found this so important for myself is because I have two main problems when I want to sit down and focus on writing: the actual sitting down and focusing part, and streamlining what I want to say into anything that would be coherent to the reader.
It works well for procrastination because the standards are so low for your first draft, you don’t end up feeling like you’ve got to buckle down and turn on the creativity switch to 100 at the snap of your fingers. My most basic rough drafts are just a bunch of bullet points with random bits and pieces of thought that would probably look like schizophrenic ramblings to anyone outside of my brain, but they really help me to understand what it is I even want to say before I try to say it. This is particularly helpful for perfectionists, as it can be very stressful for us when we want to word things the exact right way. It gives us a step one to work from, instead of expecting ourselves to shit out perfection the moment our fingers touch the keyboard and exhausting ourselves with that self-expectation too much to even bother.
As for making your piece more cohesive, you can start by jotting down all the essential points you want to hit, then add on from there all the littler things you want to include. After that you can organize the order it would be best to arrange them in, cut out parts you don’t want/need, ornament what you do have to make it interesting to the reader, that sort of thing. For an easy example, if I was writing a scene about meeting a long lost friend at the grocery store, the drafting progress might look like this:
for the sake of brevity I’ll leave it there but that’s how the process generally looks for me.
It’s nothing strict, but you can see how the first draft is a much more manageable task than the fourth if you’re sitting down to write a particular idea for the first time. Before I started drafting as a rule, I would try to go straight for the fourth one from a blank document and let me tell you, it was discouraging at best.
So if you’re facing writer’s block/perfectionism, proper rough drafting might be something to consider.
The reason I’ve found this so important for myself is because I have two main problems when I want to sit down and focus on writing: the actual sitting down and focusing part, and streamlining what I want to say into anything that would be coherent to the reader.
It works well for procrastination because the standards are so low for your first draft, you don’t end up feeling like you’ve got to buckle down and turn on the creativity switch to 100 at the snap of your fingers. My most basic rough drafts are just a bunch of bullet points with random bits and pieces of thought that would probably look like schizophrenic ramblings to anyone outside of my brain, but they really help me to understand what it is I even want to say before I try to say it. This is particularly helpful for perfectionists, as it can be very stressful for us when we want to word things the exact right way. It gives us a step one to work from, instead of expecting ourselves to shit out perfection the moment our fingers touch the keyboard and exhausting ourselves with that self-expectation too much to even bother.
As for making your piece more cohesive, you can start by jotting down all the essential points you want to hit, then add on from there all the littler things you want to include. After that you can organize the order it would be best to arrange them in, cut out parts you don’t want/need, ornament what you do have to make it interesting to the reader, that sort of thing. For an easy example, if I was writing a scene about meeting a long lost friend at the grocery store, the drafting progress might look like this:
Draft 1:
A looks at a bunch of frozen meals in the frozen food aisle. They sigh and pick up a box of frozen chicken for the third time that week, and continue down the aisle when their cart crashes into someone else’s.
“I’m sorry!” says A, holding up their hands defensively. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“A? Is that you?” asks B. “It’s been so long!”
A looks at the stranger for a long time, and remembers B’s face. They used to be friends, A recalls, and bitterly remembers how they were until A’s stepdad moved their family away to Utah for work.
“Yeah, it has,” A says, a little embarrassed. Then they see that B is wearing scrubs. “You became a doctor after all.”
“Oh, I’m still in residency.” B says, smiling. “What about you? Did you become a teacher?”
A hangs their head. The truth is that they dropped out of school years ago, and they haven’t been employed since.
Draft 4:
Banquet, Hungry Man, Stouffers...A knows these names like their closest friends’. Not too far off from the truth, actually. With a sweet tooth brought on by the bitterness of late night Walmart snack runs, they decide to bring Marie Calendar over for dinner, hoping she won’t mind the third invitation this week. A knows their unwashed hair and basket of chips and candy isn’t going to draw anyone’s attention in a place like this, but like everywhere they go, they feel every single patron’s eyes on them and as such they want out of there ASAP. They make a sharp turn to exit the aisle, and crash into the cart in front of them.
“Shit—“ A looks up, instinctively placing one hand over their chest and the other in front of them in defense. “Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t looking...”
“A?”
The stranger’s voice is airy and sweet, and oh so familiar. A stares at them, and slowly pieces together that the stranger is not a stranger, but they’re unmistakably B. Against their manners, A’s jaw drops.
“I thought it was you! I can’t believe it, it’s been so long!”
A doesn’t worry about manners anymore as B yanks them into a bear hug and reminds them of their incredible strength for such a stick-thin figure.
- Carts bump
- B recognizes A
- B tells A they used to be friends
- A remembers
- A is embarrassed because B looks successful and A hasn’t changed
- A is buying frozen food at a cheap grocery store
- A’s cart bumps into B’s
- A apologizes profusely, nervous
- confrontation
- B instead says A’s name, and excitedly tells them they haven’t seen them in years
- A recalls that they used to be best friends until middle school when A moved away to another state
- A realizes that B is wearing doctor’s scrubs, and recalls how B always said they wanted to be a doctor
- A makes mention of this
- B confirms, looking happy about their current state of life, and asks A what they have been up to
- A is reluctant to admit that they are unemployed and living alone.
A looks at a bunch of frozen meals in the frozen food aisle. They sigh and pick up a box of frozen chicken for the third time that week, and continue down the aisle when their cart crashes into someone else’s.
“I’m sorry!” says A, holding up their hands defensively. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“A? Is that you?” asks B. “It’s been so long!”
A looks at the stranger for a long time, and remembers B’s face. They used to be friends, A recalls, and bitterly remembers how they were until A’s stepdad moved their family away to Utah for work.
“Yeah, it has,” A says, a little embarrassed. Then they see that B is wearing scrubs. “You became a doctor after all.”
“Oh, I’m still in residency.” B says, smiling. “What about you? Did you become a teacher?”
A hangs their head. The truth is that they dropped out of school years ago, and they haven’t been employed since.
Draft 4:
Banquet, Hungry Man, Stouffers...A knows these names like their closest friends’. Not too far off from the truth, actually. With a sweet tooth brought on by the bitterness of late night Walmart snack runs, they decide to bring Marie Calendar over for dinner, hoping she won’t mind the third invitation this week. A knows their unwashed hair and basket of chips and candy isn’t going to draw anyone’s attention in a place like this, but like everywhere they go, they feel every single patron’s eyes on them and as such they want out of there ASAP. They make a sharp turn to exit the aisle, and crash into the cart in front of them.
“Shit—“ A looks up, instinctively placing one hand over their chest and the other in front of them in defense. “Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t looking...”
“A?”
The stranger’s voice is airy and sweet, and oh so familiar. A stares at them, and slowly pieces together that the stranger is not a stranger, but they’re unmistakably B. Against their manners, A’s jaw drops.
“I thought it was you! I can’t believe it, it’s been so long!”
A doesn’t worry about manners anymore as B yanks them into a bear hug and reminds them of their incredible strength for such a stick-thin figure.
for the sake of brevity I’ll leave it there but that’s how the process generally looks for me.
It’s nothing strict, but you can see how the first draft is a much more manageable task than the fourth if you’re sitting down to write a particular idea for the first time. Before I started drafting as a rule, I would try to go straight for the fourth one from a blank document and let me tell you, it was discouraging at best.
So if you’re facing writer’s block/perfectionism, proper rough drafting might be something to consider.
