“I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles” – Shannon Hale

When writers sit down to write, they might have a plan of action. Or they might have no plan at all, and they just want to write whatever comes to them. Either way is perfectly acceptable, but when it comes to writing rough drafts, it’s vital that you take certain measures whether you have an outline or not.

By that I mean don’t strive for perfection. Rough drafts are exactly what the name suggests: rough. They aren’t meant to be polished. In fact, they’re meant to be terrible. It might seem like you’re not getting anywhere with your story when you’re in the beginning stages. You’re wasting time if you’re constantly making changes, coming up with new ideas, or just generally not writing your best. But you’re progressing! Below you’ll find three reasons why rough drafts should never be perfect and why they don’t need to be.

 

You Need Room for New Ideas

Think about it. If you wrote everything down perfectly the first time, you would have no room for new and exciting details that you came up with while you were working on your draft. How do you expect your story to grow if everything is one and done?

A good story is constantly evolving during the writing process. Yes, you start out with a good idea, but it doesn’t end there. A story is so much more than the beginning idea that you came up with. When you have a germ of an idea in your rough draft, you need to take the time to cultivate it and let it grow. That way, by the final draft, that idea will have flourished into a beautiful flower rather than remain a tiny but promising seed.

When writers are disappointed with their rough draft, they start to feel like their original idea was all for nothing. And sometimes, you do end up taking things in an entirely different direction. But you would never have found those new ideas if you had stuck rigidly to the path that you set out for yourself in the first place.

 

So when you’re working on your draft and you’re not happy with it, ask yourself the following questions to continue growing your story:

  1. Since I’m not happy with this idea, what can I try instead?
  2. How can I make this concept, idea, or detail better through a simple change?
  3. What would happen in the story if I went in this direction instead?

Remember, writing a rough draft is never a perfect process either. When you change things, make sure you keep track of your continuity and all your notes so you don’t miss anything. If you run into a plot hole because of new information, start working backward to pinpoint what went run and how to smooth it out. After all, you have plenty of time to change things when you’re working on a rough draft.

 

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You Need to Cut and Add Details without Consequences

Speaking of changing things, you need to give yourself the chance to add and subtract from your rough draft. Don’t let your draft be stagnant by consistently keeping to your original idea or outline. The new ideas you come up with during your draft are going to be huge changes, but the certain smaller details are just as important.

Every aspect of your story evolves as you write it. Aspects such as character development and worldbuilding don’t suddenly appear completely fleshed out in your mind. If you don’t make room for changing any details and let yourself flesh things out, then everything becomes stuck, and your story doesn’t progress. These things need to change as you write, otherwise nothing that will appear in the final raft develops.

This is also why planning ahead is important. Don’t be a perfectionist and overthink, but don’t expect things to run smoothly if you go in without some type of direction. When working on a rough draft, be mindful of huge steppingstones that you laid down first, but don’t be thrown off if you decide to tweak things as you go from point A to point B. A few things to do include:

  1. Write the new details down instead of trying to remember. That way you can circle back later and edit.
  2. Remember that every aspect of your story can change over time. If you have a new, better idea for a character’s personality or how your worldbuilding works, go for it! Don’t stick to what you started to keep the draft safe.

In the end, don’t worry about if something isn’t consistent with another detail you wrote beforehand. That’s what editing is for, and you know that your new idea improves on what you wrote previously.

 

You Need to Grow as a Writer 

Lastly, as a reminder, writers are always growing and learning as they write. If you keep focusing on making your draft perfect, then you lose your focus on improving your writing. By then, it becomes a game of stress, disappointment, and frustration, and you aren’t growing as a writer even if you write.

Rough drafts shouldn’t be perfect because there’s so much more to writing than the rough draft. So don’t place such high expectations on yourself. You won’t have everything fit right at the beginning. This is what makes the writing process so unique.

So when you start working on your rough draft, don’t panic when it doesn’t work out like you wanted it to. Writing is a constant learning process. Making changes to your story means you’re heading in the right direction, and if a lot changes in your rough draft, then you can expect great things in your final, polished draft.

 

 

 

E. S. Foster is a fiction writer, poet, and graduate student at the University of Cambridge, St. Edmund’s. She is also the creator of the Foster Your Writing blog. Her work has appeared in over twenty literary journals, including Aurora Journal, Sour Cherry Mag, and Paragraph Planet. Her chapbooks have been published by Yavanika Press (2022) and Ghost City Press (2023). You can find more of her articles here.