I’ve recently discovered that my writing speed has accelerated from around 700 to about 1000 words an hour. I was trying to work out exactly why that is. Partly it’s the incentive of having a proper break after every thousand words. I get up, stretch my legs, have a cup of tea and some time away from the screen. Maybe do a bit of crochet–I’m getting a lot more crochet done this way 
Mostly, though, I think it’s a change in my mindset about what a first draft should be. So here are my seven rules for writing a quick and dirty first draft:
1. When in doubt, just put anything down
I no longer spend time selecting the right words in a first draft. If I find myself mulling over word choice for any length of time, I tell myself to just pick one–any one, no matter how rubbish–and carry on writing. I can choose a better word in the second draft.
2. Dialogue doesn’t need beats
Beats are the little bits of action interspersed through the dialogue, grounding it in a particular location. Of course, the dialogue will need these eventually, but in the first draft I’m happy to just get chunks of dialogue down on the page. I might decide to move this conversation to another location in the next draft, so that will be even easier to do if I don’t have a load of beats that no longer make sense. I find it much easier to get into the back and forth flow of a conversation if I don’t have to keep writing those pesky little beats!
3. The internet is off-limits
I’m banned from using the internet to check things during the first draft. The internet is way too much of a time suck for me. If I find I need to mention something I’m not quite sure about–like the car plant my character’s dad worked at–I just insert a row of question marks to remind me. I’ve also used square brackets to enclose notes about what I need to look up – basically, any symbol you wouldn’t normally use will work, making it easy to search for using Word’s “Find” function.
4. Clichés are fine and dandy
My first drafts have plenty of clichés. This is fine as I can weed them out in the next draft using my mighty cliché hoe. Or sometimes I play with them, morphing them into something unexpected. Clichés are great fun to do this with, and I’m starting to see them as a store of potential treasures rather than the bane of my existence.
5. Turn off the spell checker
I have some truly dreadful spelling mistakes in my first drafts. I’m a touch typist, so my letters can get completely disordered when I’m typing fast and furious. This is fine, and if I disable the wiggly red line I don’t even notice them. It saves me an awful lot of time and I don’t break the flow if I just keep on going regardless of spelling.
6. Avoid the urge to polish
There is no point polishing your first draft while you’re in the middle of it. Really, no point whatsoever. In fact, I’d say it’s counterproductive because you’re far less willing to rip out scenes that aren’t working when you get to subsequent drafts. Believe me, it’s an awful lot easier to rip out chunks of rough first draft than it is to cut your painstakingly polished prose.
This rule also covers those moments when you’ve suddenly decided to change a detail that impacts on scenes earlier in the story. You don’t need to go back and rewrite those scenes now. Just carry on writing as if you already had, and sort it all out in the second draft.
7. It’s fine to write a crap first draft
You might need to write this on a post-it note and stick it to your monitor to begin with – I know I did. The key for me at first draft stage is simply getting the story down, no matter how rough it comes out. And you know what, the surprising thing is that these rough first drafts actually don’t look all that bad when I come back to them. Yes, they’ll need to be run through with a spellchecker and my mighty cliché hoe, but on the whole I’m pretty impressed with the way my writing flows when I give myself permission to write crap.
***
So, if you find yourself getting too precious about your first drafts and want to up your writing speed, give these rules a try. They might not work for you–we all need to find the strategies that suit us best–but they’ve definitely worked for me!
I never realised you were such a cliche ho… ;P
At the end of the day, when all’s said and done, I am a major cliche ho!
1000 words per hour! Wooohooo!
Thanks for sharing Jo. Will try leaving out dialogue beats. Playing around with cliches sounds fun too
If you have any suggestions on how to speed up revision…?
One is NOT to do an evening class which requires writing essays!
*grinds teeth*
Hehe – on a good day! Not today, sadly.
Speeding up revision? I’ll have a think about that. Hmmm….
Excellent stuff. I’ve pretty much discovered all of this myself. Square brackets are my friend. Can’t bring myself to turn off the spell checker, but I do pretty much everything else you say.
Never thought to reward myself for X number of words though. That’s a great idea.
Are you okay if I share this with the Muse From Hell writer’s group?
Share away!
I love rewards, even if it’s just a cup of tea. Actually, most of my rewards involve tea. I think I may be slightly obsessed.
This looks like very sensible advice and I’m going to try it [not that I do much polishing on #1]. It could explain why the words just spool out during Nanowrimo – when there isn’t TIME to mess about – and slow to a snail’s pace when I try to be proper and professional.
I never knew that beats were called beats. You live and learn!
I’ve never done Nano, but this last month has been like my own little personal Nano and it’s definitely got me thinking about how to speed up my writing.
Being proper and professional is great for later drafts, but I find it blocks me if I try to write like that on the first draft.
You can think up AND WRITE DOWN 1000 words pr hour O.O
*Is impressed*
I know – I’m a writing machine, baby! 😉
All very good advice. I’m a professional copyeditor and, judging from the state of some of the books I deal with, the authors haven’t got past the first draft. Never mind, they have me to check their spelling and grammar….! *sigh* By the way, you are a very bad influence on me. Now that my short story and vignette are finished and I will NOT play around with them any more, I have not one but TWO WIPs on my laptop. I never knew I had it in me, so thank you for that! X
Woohoo! You’re writing more – I thought you would 😀
The drafting process is essential. There are very few people out there I would let see my first drafts because they’re full of mistakes and things I could have put so much more elegantly. I wouldn’t dream of submitting them anywhere.
OMFG, I could be so much more efficient if I put in the stupid password. Arrgghh. Staring over.
I can type several thousand words a day when I get motivated and on a roll. I have to have the time and interest though. Also, once I stop I have to go back and read the last 10-15 pages (where I invariably make small changes). It seems to get me back in the groove, in their heads maybe. It’s like that little thing before TV shows start “What happened last week”, then I can jump back in.
I don’t mind the spell checker. I am a pretty accurate typer. My habit is to quickly correct as I go, I can’t really stop myself if I see the error my finger hits the backspace button before I can even stop myself. I do find some hilarious errors though where my fingers are insistent on typing something and my brain is telling them something else. I just had a guy put his arms around the other guy’s waste. And he wasn’t taking out his trash.
My problem comes when I get to a scene I don’t want to write. I can’t just skip it and do the ending first, or the middle at the end, or whatnot. I’m compelled to write linearly from A to B, kind of an OCD thing. I don’t even like writing more than one story at once, but I can if I apply myself. What do I hate writing? Sex scenes. LOL Love reading them, just hate writing them. They’re HARD. Making sure all the legs and bits go in the right place and don’t end up bending backwards like a rubber man. Sigh. 😉
I do usually have to read back a little bit to get myself back into the flow each day too, but not that many pages!
You hate writing sex scenes? I hear this a lot from other writers. I agree that they’re a challenge – especially the pronouns (although I’ve found that aspect has got much easier over time), but they’re my favourite bits to write, hands down. Probably why I write so many of them ;P
Tam, I’ve only very recently managed to free myself from the need to write linearly. I still do it mostly linearly, but if I’m having problems with finishing off a scene I skip onto the next one now. It’s usually much easier to see what needs writing when I come back to the missing bit in the next draft
Turn off spell checker? But then you don’t get that very special experience that comes when you open up the file and it tells you that your spelling errors are now so numerous it can no longer show them all. That’s when you know you’re making real progress with the draft!
Heh, no, I agree, turn those damn squiggles off! In fact I agree with all the points. My favourite analogy for polishing while you’re still writing, is that it’s like building and house and wallpapering and laying carpets before you’ve got the roof on. One good rainstorm/unexpected plot direction and all that work is ruined.
The squiggles must go! And I love your analogy – so true.
OH these are all good things and I follow most of them…not the spell checker though…I leave that on b/c I kind of automatically check, and correct my own stuff.
I definitely agree about not polishing – better to get the story down on paper (so to speak) and then go back b/c you never know what you may have to change and I DEFINITELY agree it’s much easier to cut stuff that isn’t polished than stuff that is.
Honestly, that red squiggly line bugs me so badly – it interrupts my writing flow like nothing else. I rejoiced the day I realised I could turn it off!
Excellent advice! and I think I could benefit from almost every one *blush*. My productivity has slowed right down recently, and even if every word were a pearl of wisdom (which it ain’t), it’s still not getting the story told. I think the NaNo approach has many benefits. Maybe why I do better when there’s a deadline over my head, too. I *can’t* shilly-shally around! Thanks for the motivation
Always happy to inspire! I’ve needed to develop this approach just lately with a deadline looming. I think I need more deadlines because otherwise I’m a master procrastinator – and there is ALWAYS something else I could be usefully getting on with!
I work in a similar fashion. When I have a word or expression I’m not sure I like, I make the font blue and move on. When I’m sure I don’t like it but can’t come up with better, I make the font red and move on. When I’m at a loss, put XXX down, turn it red, and move on. I habitually write what I call naked dialogue.
Some of my first drafts are pretty solid. Others are rough and have giant holes. It doesn’t matter. My biggest fear is always that I won’t make it to the end of the story. Once I did, the stress is off, and I can go back filling in the holes.
I started doing a few things lately that made me more productive: write a fairly detailed outline, decide the names of all the supporting characters and fictional places ahead of time.
I think I might have got the inspiration for writing “naked dialogue” from reading your drafts!
I know what you mean – filling in holes is much easier when you’ve finished the story. It’s usually obvious what needs to go there by the time you’ve written the ending.
Good point on character names and places. Trying to find just the right name can take up way too much time if you leave it to decide on during the draft. I shall try to get better at that myself.
Colour! I can use that.
I do the crosses thing but that’s all.
Jo – love the term ‘master procrastinator’. Rolls off the tongue beautifully