Vent: That 'just write garbage first draft' advice cost me 6 months of edits

Everyone says to just vomit words on the page. Fix it later. Tried that on my 80k word novel. Took 4 months to write the slop. Then 6 months of gutting and rewriting. Should have plotted first. Spent 10 hours just reorganizing chapter 3 alone. Has anyone else found that method actually backfires big time?

3 comments

3 Comments

danielr9910d ago

The "just write garbage" thing is like when people say "just go to the gym without a plan and you'll figure it out." Yeah you might, but you're way more likely to waste a bunch of time wandering around. I tried the garbage draft thing on a short story once and spent more time untangling my bad choices than if I'd just sketched out a few bullet points first. Sometimes a little structure upfront saves you from a bigger headache later.

nina_hall4810d ago

Nina Hall: Huh, I never really thought of it that way. I used to be all in on the "just puke it out" method, but you kinda nailed it with the gym analogy. I remember trying to edit a mess of a chapter once and it took me three weekends to figure out what I was even trying to say. Mapped out a simple scene list for my current project and it's like night and day, just way less backtracking. The whole "garbage draft" thing feels like a shortcut to nowhere now.

abby_morgan1810d ago

Oh totally, that scene list thing is a lifesaver, right? I'm curious though, what made you stick with the puke method for so long? Was it just habit or did someone tell you that's how real writers do it? I feel like a lot of us get trapped by that whole "first drafts are supposed to be terrible" mantra without really questioning if that advice actually works for the kind of writing we do. Like, three weekends editing sounds brutal, but did you at least learn something from that mess that you carry into your scene lists now? Sometimes I wonder if the garbage draft method is just an excuse to avoid the hard work of thinking before you type.