Are first drafts supposed to be horrible?

First drafts don't have to be perfect, but I don't think they should suck either. If you write a really bad first draft, that just makes a whole lot more work later on in the editing process. In my first draft, I have parts that will need a lot of editing and other parts that won't need so much. The quality tends to be inconsistent.

Also, if you think your first drafts suck, it might actually be a good sign. Incompetent writers think their first drafts are great. The more competent you become, the more you'll notice the minor flaws even in an otherwise stellar first draft. Oh, the joys of being a perfectionist.

I read somewhere that "the rough draft is the writer telling himself the story."

I do not remember where I saw that, or who said it, (wish I knew who said it), but when I read it, I finally understood what the rough draft is supposed to be, and a lot of my writing anxieties lifted. I was able to relax into my stories, and enjoy writing them as they unfolded, it was like taking a tractor trailer sized emergency brake, off of a porsche.

mirandashell said:

This is your first serious attempt at writing a novel, isn't it? And you are 14?

So yeah, your first draft will be fairly crappy. As long as you get the story down, everything is fixable.

And like a lot of other people have said, the first draft of the first novel is a steep learning process. You're doing well. Don't worry yet. In fact, enjoy this bit. This bit is fun.

Editing is when the real work starts!

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This.

If it's any consolation, Hemingway once famously said that "the first draft of everything is shit".

For most of us, first drafts are bad. Thank goodness for revision.

Even a first draft should be written as well as you can write it.

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That statement is rather disconcerting to this writer. I think it goes without saying that people generally write with some semblance of coherency. Computers help but I know I sometimes write so fast, trying to get my thoughts down that I drop words and transpose letters, spell shit wrong, forget to indent or put quotes around stuff. . .so what? For some people--guilty as charged--to stop that flow to fix something would be tantamount to a death knell. Not saying that applies to everybody. The point is, we writers create via a million different processes. I respect that.

Okay, off the soap box.

I'm a two-fingered typist. My wife once asked me how I can write entire novels at that speed. I replied that I write at exactly the same speed as I think.

No, my dear. They are supposed to be perfect.
It is only in perfection that "serenity of spirit" can be found.

No one can edit a blank page.

Listen to James Macdonald, for he is wise.

James D. Macdonald said:

No one can edit a blank page.

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John Cage?

No. "First" drafts are supposed to be as good as you can make them, prior to reader/editorial review and comment.

My semantics differentiates between "first" draft and "rough" draft. I teach freshman-level English composition at the local university, and that distinction I make explicitly. A "first" draft means the first completion of something, with the nitpicky spelling/typo/obvious grammatical errors in the "rough" draft cleaned up. I won't review "rough" drafts. I will review "first" drafts, and in fact insist on having my students produce exactly those kinds of "first" drafts for my critique, but not for a grade.

caw

Giving yourself permission to write a bad first draft is giving yourself permission to fail. (That is a good thing.) If you don't have permission to fail, you will never try risky things. Especially when you are just starting, how will you know what you are writing is good until you write it, give yourself some distance, and then read it? Maybe your first draft will be golden, but unless you have an unhealthfully large ego, you won't know it will be golden until you write it, so if you don't give yourself permission to suck, you will wait and dither and think, and you won't write.

If your reaction after reading your first draft and finding that it isn't golden is to say "I suck. I couldn't write a good first draft. I must not be cut out to be a writer," you'll never edit it or write your first good book.

And even if you find you are an edit as you go writer, you have to give yourself permission to go on before you are sure it is perfect, bucause you probably won't ever be sure it is really perfect, and you will never finish.

So keep writing, and focus on finishing.

Becky Black said:

The primary function of the first draft, in my opinion, is to make the story exist

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I think that's a perfect way of putting it.

If you want to learn to ice skate you go out on the ice. Even if you fall on your butt. Even if you fall on your butt a lot. You go out that first day knowing that you're probably going to fall on your butt. You don't intend to fall on your butt. You don't allow yourself to fall on your butt. But you're okay with it if you do. And you go out on the ice again the next day.

If you play guitar, and you play your guitar one hour a day with the attitude that you're going to learn as much as you can and do the best you can, after thirty years you're probably going to be pretty good at it.

First drafts are whatever you make them...

Crap, perfection or in between.

My first-first draft was absolute garbage. At the time, 8 or so years ago, I thought it was brilliant. I was ready to query right when I finished. Luckily, a lot of things got in the way, and by the time I revisited it 4 years later, I was wise enough to know how very amateur it was, and wasted no time scrapping nearly everything and rewriting from scratch. Good thing, too. I saved myself some embarrassment.

Mr. Breadcrumb said:

And even if you find you are an edit as you go writer, you have to give yourself permission to go on before you are sure it is perfect, bucause you probably won't ever be sure it is really perfect, and you will never finish.

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I don't worry about perfect. I worry about making it the best I can, and that's what I do. Each story is a little better than the one before, but they will never be perfect and that doesn't bother me. Leaving something "wrong" and moving on - that bothers the hell out of me.