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Aidan Moher
@aidanmoher.com

The first draft is for telling yourself the story, revisions are for telling your readers.

Mary Robinette Kowal@maryrobinettekowal.com

I don't like "Your first draft will be shitty" as advice, because it's a really negative framing. I prefer, "You have the freedom to be messy creating your first draft." Anyone crafter knows what their room looks like mid-creation. Writers should be as free to be as exhuberent and messy.

408 reposts1.3K likes

Sean Kelly
@storyslug.bsky.social

I think it was Anne Lamott who called it the "down draft," as in "the only job of this draft is to get it down." Stephen King said it as, "you write the first draft with the door closed, the second draft with the door open."

Brad in TKPK
@bxe123.bsky.social

This works for songwriting. The ridiculous things I say in the first draft of a song compared to how I would perform in front of people, is like night and day. The “absurd” gets me the interesting* thought, and that thought inspires the language that properly* expresses the feeling. *subjective

Brad in TKPK
@bxe123.bsky.social

That’s a way of thinking about, sure. I have tons of unfinished songs, which if I had to play in public, would be bad. But one day I could turn a phrase, fix a melody, write a bridge or better first verse — it can happen fifty-eight different ways — and be happy in a moment.

FEARsten
@k-a-aitch.bsky.social

the creative mind is so funny. Tell your story. "No!" Okay tell your story through a fictional character. "No!" Okay, tell your story through a fictional character in a fictional world. "No!" Okay...your fictional character in a fictional world can himself be telling a story. "...fine...MAYBE!"

FEARsten
@k-a-aitch.bsky.social

Now the conceit of The Hobbit being just an extraction and fictionalized retelling of the travel journals of Bilbo Baggins, himself an entirely fictional character in an entirely fictional world, make a little more sense. As many veils and sieves as you need, take em, they're all free.

CJ Vickery
@cjvickery.bsky.social

I don’t think I would have realized how much I intuitively write this way without your framing. I need it to pass muster and hold my interest first before I can decide how to refine and present it!