What Your First Draft Needs
" The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement . " - George F. Will There is a danger with beginner writers who may feel that their first draft has to be perfect. I know because it's how I used to think. However, a first draft is not meant to be brilliant. There's no way to get a first draft right other than to get it wrong. Or some of it, at least. It's why it's called an exploratory draft. It's where you follow your curiosity and explore ways of doing things to see how it plays out. It needs time to be left alone. It's meant to be torn apart later on. The majority of it doesn't have to make the second draft. This stage is less about quality and more on getting something down. It doesn't have to be great but it has to be something. You need to go through what doesn't work in order to find what does. The first draft is an essential part of that discovery. Rewrite Later You only get one chance to make a good fi...