How to finish a (shitty) first draft

When I first started writing, I suffered from perfectionism (and I still do, but now with less impact on my productivity). I used to write a couple of chapters of a project, then go back and edit, and edit, and change something major, and edit again. This, of course, resulted in my writing going absolutely nowhere because the constant editing led to slow progress, which led to frustration, which led to dropping the project altogether.

That was until I discovered ✨the shitty Swiss-cheese draft™✨.

Theoretically, I already knew that the first draft doesn’t have to be flawless, but the standards I set myself don’t have anything to do with logic (if they did, my life would be a whole lot easier).

But then, one magical morning, as I was doing some worldbuilding and editing the first chapter AGAIN, I realised that I would never finish a novel if I kept going like this. I had never finished writing anything until then, because I lost motivation before I made it past the first act, by constantly criticising myself and going back to edit. Writing used to be something I enjoyed doing, until it became a chore, something I couldn’t get right because I needed it to be absolutely perfect. (And I blame my German heritage for that). But the problem is, perfection is a myth.

So today, I will share with you the things I did, and didn’t do, to finish the first draft of my first novel in a couple of months, and which I utilised and perfected for the draft of my second novel.

1. Write the story down in bullet points

Some of you might already be doing this, but when I first started writing, I was completely going off vibes. The problem is that vibes don’t really care about plot points, about the 3- or 5-Act-Structure, or about pacing.

I tried being a pantser (discovering the story along the way without a plan) when it came to my novel, but that worked about as well as being a strict plotter.

For me, the way to go is a balance of the two: Planning the main points of the story like Inciting Incident, Climax and Resolution, having a general understanding of the structure, and, most importantly, allowing myself to change things as I write. It didn’t matter that much if I changed things along the way, because I still knew where in the story I was, where I wanted to go, and what I had to do to get there.

2. Island Writing

Island Writing, a concept I learned more about from Matt Bell in the book Refuse to Be Done, ensured that I didn’t lose my flow when writing my story. The idea is simple: If I wasn’t excited by a scene I was writing, I moved on to one I couldn’t stop thinking about. If I had an idea for the ending sequence, I wrote it.

I used to believe I had to write chronologically, had to have everything figured out before I was allowed to move to the next scene, page, chapter. But sometimes I didn’t know how to move from one place to the next, couldn’t figure out the transition from dialogue to scene-setting, which left me pondering for hours, nay days, spiralling into the depths of uncertainty until I was sure my whole novel belonged in the trash and I was incapable of ever finishing anything.

Once I stopped caring about writing in order, about filling every scene before moving on, everything fell into place. I wrote what I was excited about, allowed myself to let the first draft be the first draft, because I knew I would come back to edit anyway.

A writer friend of mine, whom I introduced to Island Writing, said this:

Such a game changer. Island writing helped me realize that sometimes ‘Writer’s Block’ isn’t a blockage at all. It can just be a sign you’re working on the wrong piece for the energy you have available in the moment you sit down to write.

– Aurrey Drake (who also has an amazin account here)

3. Swiss-cheese draft

If there is one thing I will never let go of in my writing process, it is placeholders. Placeholders, bullet points, small paragraphs with a page of plot summed up – all of these things gave me the possibility to move on with my first draft, to continue writing until I was left with what I call the ✨Swiss-Cheese draft✨.

This is similar to point 2 but applies to the whole novel. The Swiss-Cheese draft for me is one step below the First Draft: it is imperfect, full of holes and placeholders, and its only purpose is for me to finish the story, to write from beginning to end without looking back (or at least looking back less).

Here are some of my favourite placeholders from my work-in-progress:

And I’m telling you, it works wonders.

For me, editing a shitty first draft is so much easier than editing without being finished, because I can look at the novel as a whole, from start to finish, can identify its flaws and successes and work on them accordingly in my first round of edits.

My Swiss-Cheese draft usually doesn’t reach the word count expected for the genre I’m writing in, and I add a substantial amount of words in the following round of edits. I recently finished the Swiss-Cheese draft for my work-in-progress ‘Broken Chains’, a dystopian fantasy novel set in an alternate Germany, with 58.000 words.

I am now at 65.000 words, aiming for around 70.000 at the end of this editing round.

4. Bet with someone else

You know what you have to do, you are making progress, but are somehow still lacking motivation?

It is time for a bet!

Setting deadlines generally doesn’t work for me, because I know that there are no consequences if I don’t make it in time. And consequences are essential when it comes to motivating myself.

So, I made a bet with a friend of mine. We made the deal to finish the first drafts of our novels by the end of the month. If she failed, she would have to donate £100 to an organisation she did not want to support in the slightest.

This, however, would not have worked for me because I know that at the end of the day, I am still my own person and could simply not do it, to hell with honour! So instead, my friend said if I failed, she would not speak to me until I finished, she would ignore me, not reply to messages, and leave me for dead if I had to go to the hospital. At first, I thought she was bluffing because she is a nice person and I didn’t think her capable of ignoring me, but the risk was too big!

So, I did it. I finished the first draft at the end of the month, and she did as well.

And so can you!

Some more ideas for a bet would be:

- Having to donate money to something you don’t want to support

- Having to give the other person your phone for 10 minutes, to do with whatever they please.

- You have to do something you really don’t want to do (message an ex, run around the block in your undies,…)

- Have the other person decide which colour to dye your hair

- …

I hope these tips and tools can help you as much as they helped me.

What are the things you do to finish your first draft? Any secret methods you would like to share? Let me know!

(And if you have any other ideas for a bet, drop these in the comments as well 🌚)

The Gently Mad Book Shop & Bookbinder in Edinburgh 📚