“Help! My first draft is a mess.”

via Daily Prompt: Frantic

There’s a common thread among new writers. Anxiety.

 

“What should I write about?”

“What powers should I give my character?”

“How do I make sure my character is relatable?”

 

The cold, hard truth is if you’re asking these questions more than once or twice then they aren’t questions about your story. These are covert ways of anxiety and insecurity rearing their ugly little faces as procrastination.

We support authors and artists in their quest to create worlds and inspire readers, so we love discussing story ideas and helping authors develop their stories and characters. But if a writer is asking the same questions, they aren’t progressing. If they aren’t progressing in the story then they aren’t writing  If they aren’t writing, you guessed it, they’re asking these questions as a way to procrastinate.

There’s a thousand, nah—a million reasons to procrastinate.  They boil down to just two, though:

• Fear
• Insecurity

Writers are notorious for worrying about how their work will be received. The critics, family, friends, that English teacher who said we had an excellent vocabulary—

“What will they think of my story?”

That’s totally normal! You’re pouring your heart and soul into this. The words on the page are formed from YOUR blood, sweat, and tears. Non-writers sometimes don’t understand this. We get it.

“It’s scary!”

Okay, you’ve had your frantic moment of sheer panic. The moment is over. Choke it back.  Write.

A first draft isn’t meant to be perfect, that’s why it is the FIRST draft.

You can fix plot holes, character development inconsistencies, and everything else AFTER the draft is complete.

You can’t fix anything that doesn’t exist, so stop keeping your world a secret and let it exist.

After you’ve revised your draft, send it to trustworthy beta readers. They’ll help you find those issues and good beta readers will give you ideas on how a reader wants to see those issues resolved.

Bottom line: quit procrastinating and go write, Askew!

We support the creation of your stories with all our hearts and we’re here to help you develop them.

If you want to brainstorm with us come be Askew at www.facebook.com/groups/rhetoricaskew.

Speaking of our Facebook group (see what I did there) we have The Askew Challenge series of workshops coming up on April 1st. Come join us and finish your story in  90 days, or less.