Hot take: those 'just write the bad first draft' prompts are actually a trap for some of us

I kept seeing the writing prompt about "write the worst first draft you can" and thought it was genius. Tried it for 3 straight weeks on my short story. Ended up with 20 pages of total nonsense that I couldn't even edit into something decent. Then my critique group told me I was using it as an excuse to not plan anything. Now I do a bare bones outline first and it works way better. Has anyone else found that popular writing advice falls flat for how your brain works?

2 comments

2 Comments

margaretj403d ago

That 3 week trial sounds rough, 20 pages of unusable text is a lot to dig through. I actually love the bad first draft method for getting past my perfectionism, but I only do it for about 45 minutes max before I switch to something else. It works for me because my problem is the opposite, I get stuck staring at a blank page for hours if I try to plan everything first.

rosed322d ago

Made the mistake of using that method for a NaNoWriMo project once. My "bad first draft" was so bad it circled back around to being a blank page because I deleted the whole thing in a fit of shame. Some brains just need a little structure to not fall apart.