5 Further Tips for Writing a Good First Draft

By georgelthomas on 16 Mar 2021 • ( 1 )

Hi everyone, I hope you’re all well and that you’re feeling creatively fulfilled. Today I’m sharing some further tips on writing that all-important first draft.

5 Further Tips for Writing a Good First Draft

1 Give Yourself a Deadline
Deadlines can help you to stay focused, and you can use them to help train yourself to finish what you start. It’s a good idea to set yourself an easy, manageable deadline to begin with. So you may, for instance, say, “I must finish this first draft by the end of the month.” If you force yourself to stick to your targets regularly, you’ll see a boost in your productivity.

2 Start with an Outline
Some writers are outright opposed to working with an outline because they worry it will stifle their creativity. But an outline can be extremely helpful in keeping your thoughts organised and keeping your story from wandering too far away from your idea. You can begin by writing just a very brief overview of each act of your story, where you just tell yourself what happens on a basic level. Some people prefer to have an in-depth account of how every scene will play out, and include everything from how the character moves within the scene, to what they’re thinking on the deepest level. Others still use an amalgamation of the two, and it can vary wildly in either direction.

3 Write the Ending First
If you already have a strong idea of how your story will end, then it can be helpful to begin there. Having written the ending first, you will have somewhere to aim for when you’re writing the rest of your story. Some writers believe that once the ending is written, there isn’t any room left to be creative. However, you still have the rest of your story to write and there can be any number of ways it might wind up at the end point you’ve written. Or, you might figure out a completely different ending along the way. At the very east, if you write the ending first, you’ll have something.

4 Write out of Order
Writing can be a slog. There will be times you feel as if you’re flying through your work, and others when you feel as if time has completely stopped still. One thing you can try to help combat this is writing out of order. It’s not the law or written in stone that you must write the first scene first. It’s your story, and you can write it any way you like! If the more exciting and action-packed scenes are the ones you can’t wait to write, then begin with those. The only drawback with this is that you will, ultimately, still have to write those slower ‘between the action’ scenes. Hopefully by then, though, you’ll have written so much that you feel inspired to keep going.

5 Don’t Wait for the ‘Right Time’
The right time to write doesn’t really exist. We all have our rituals and practices that help us to get into the mood and feel inspired, but sometimes, the inspiration just doesn’t come and we need to be productive anyway. The only way around this really, is to not wait for that spark of inspiration, and just put pen to paper. If you wait around for ‘the right time’ then it will never come, but if you start writing, you’ll find that it may just be enough to get the creative juices flowing.

As always, thank you for reading my words, I really apprecite it!

Until next time,

George