You Can't Do It Wrong: Drafting

YOU CAN'T DO IT WRONG: DRAFTING

I have, at this point, drafted 48 books to completion. I have pantsed, I have lightly planned, I have never outright seriously planned because it's just not the way I do things, but I have had books where there's more planning involved than others. I think it's pretty clear that I know what I'm doing when it comes to drafting, and I think it's pretty obvious that I've done my work and found a way that works for me. After all about half of those drafts were written in the last decade, just to give you some idea of how I've worked.

A lot of the time, I see people giving advice, and telling new writers, and old ones, that the way they're doing things is wrong. Either because they're a hardcore planner and thinking pantsing is the antithesis of writing, or they're pretty sure that their method is the only valid way of doing things because it works for them, so therefore it must work for everyone.

Of course it doesn't work like that, but I'm not a big name. I have my little corner of social media and the internet. I have my readers, and the people in my writing community, and I adore it. I love that I get to do something I love for my career, and I love that I can keep telling my stories and getting them out there to people, allowing them to explore and learn more about my characters and my way of doing things.

I will say this though, and I will keep saying this: YOU CAN'T DRAFT WRONG.

It doesn't matter if you are a planner with step by step breakdowns. It doesn't matter if you use a beat sheet. It doesn't matter if you wake up one morning and just go wherever you want with no plan whatsoever. It doesn't matter if you know the ending, doesn't matter if you don't. All forms of drafting are valid. You tell your story the best way you can, and there is no wrong way to do things.

At the end of the day, the job of that first draft is just to exist. If you find that the process you used doesn't work for you, that's different, but it does not mean that you have therefore done something wrong, like a crime against the writing gods or whatever. All of us writers are doing the best we can with the tools we have, and it's completely normal for that process, and those tools, to grow, change, adapt, and all the rest. It's normal to change your process, and it's also normal to hit on one that works for you and take it and run with it.

When I first started drafting all those years ago, I did a very very very bare bones outline. Like even more bare bones than now. I also sat down and fast drafted that book in ten days. When I sat down to write the next one, I tried to do the same process, and found that nope, it was not going to work for me. So I tried a few things, and changed this and that, and then hit on a process that has, pretty much, since then been the way that I work.

It's all well and good trying to tell people that your process is the one that helps you bring about clean drafts and brings with it minimal editing, and therefore it's a good process. It is... but it's good for you, not everyone. There is nothing wrong with finding your own process. You've not done something wrong, and if you find it doesn't work midway through the draft, ain't nothing wrong with changing it either.

We all have to work with what works for us. Nothing wrong with your process not matching anyone else's, that is normal. We all approach the creative side of ourselves differently, and that's completely okay. So if someone is telling you that you draft 'wrong', you don't. It might not be the right way for them, and it might turn out not to be the right way for you, but no creative process is completely wrong. It's just about finding the right one for the way you work. And that's okay.

Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!

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