I know, I know: You’re a perfectionist. You research compulsively. You mind map. You outline. And you spend countless hours writing, rewriting and editing clean first drafts of your work.
It’s got to stop. At least the perfect first drafts.
As a copywriter who juggles multiple projects—and likely blogs, self-markets, pursues creative work and, you know, has a life—give yourself a break: let go and write an ugly first draft.
Writing and editing are separate tasks
Don’t get me wrong. Refining, polishing and fine-tuning are crucial to the copywriting process. “Rewriting is the essence of writing well,” notes William Zinsser in his classic guide to writing, On Writing Well. “It’s where the game is won or lost.”
But you need to write before you can rewrite.
And writing and editing are different tasks. They “use different parts of your brain,” says writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant. She notes, “…trying to edit while you write is like trying to wash the dishes while you’re still eating dinner. It really doesn’t work.”
It takes self-discipline to be imperfect
Maybe you think you’re showing discipline by twisting and tormenting words on your first go-’round. I disagree.
My first drafts almost always require massive surgery to meet word-count. After years of torturing my first efforts, I now consider clean first drafts self-indulgent.
True grit lies in pushing forward with a rough draft—and trusting yourself to refine it later.
5 benefits of a dirty first draft
If they’ve become part of your routine, polished first drafts are a tough habit to break. It’s kind of like having poison ivy—and forcing your self not to scratch. You need to draw on pure strength of will to not tinker with words as they pour out.
But once you silence your internal editor and train yourself to just write, you’ll realize a number of benefits.
Churning out a dirty first draft helps you:
- Fight Resistance. In his book, The War of Art—a must-read for all writers—Steven Pressfield identifies Resistance as the writer’s enemy. A palpable, negative force, Resistance manifests in inertia, procrastination and busy work. Forcing yourself to produce an imperfect first draft proves a great antidote to Resistance.
- Abolish writers’ block. If you’ve ever sweated in front of a blank screen, you know the hardest part about writing is making a start. You’ll be surprised at the freedom you feel when you give yourself permission to regurgitate a sketchy, incomplete iteration of your work. Whatever gripped you now lets go. You’re loosed to write—not write well, but write.
- Nip scope creep. If you’re a compulsive researcher like me, by the time you sit down to draft, you probably have far too much material. A rudimentary first draft tells you where you stand with research and structure of your project. It helps you identify which tools and frames serve your work—and which don’t. And it lets you kill darlings now before you’ve grown inordinately fond of them.
- Polish faster. A rough first draft gives you a quick overview and lets you make massive cuts—paragraphs, multiple bullet points, quotes—at the starting gate. This gives you much less material to polish and refine later. It allows you to do the fine-tuning that separates a loose group of clever ideas into a piece of incisive content.
- Boost self-confidence. One I’ve gotten a rough draft out of my system, I feel a burden lift. I exhale with relief and a sense of confidence: I now know I’ll be able to revise subsequent drafts and polish copy. I’ll meet deadlines, please my clients, get paid, not end up a bag lady, etc. Fast, funky first draft = reprieve for the day.
The zen of “good enough” first drafts
As a perfectionist, you know you can tinker with your work forever and never feel completely satisfied. So go ahead and “have the feeling—but don’t act on it,” as shrinks advise.
Because the more readily you sit with the uncertainty a “good enough” first draft, the more likely you are to end up with damn good finished copy.
Great advice! And nearly impossible – at least for me – to follow. Although I have learned to write out of order, and that helps some. In fact, I usually end up writing the opening paragraph last, having already filled in all the middle and end stuff.
That’s a great tip and describes pretty much the way I work. Throw it all down, walk away, come back later and tidy up the mess.
@Cindy–Yes, it IS hard advice to follow. It’s taken me years to recognize how much time I waste agonizing over first drafts that invariably need major surgery anyway. This post is as much advice to myself as other writers! That said, I have a “how-to” post in mind that shares some basic tips that have helped me–maybe next week’s post.
@John: Good for you. It takes discipline to let go–and let it be ghastly in first-draft form.
It’s taken me a while to get to where I can work with a muddy first draft. I used to edit myself as I wrote, and my work was stifled. Now I pour it out, let it sit for at least 12 hours (preferably 24), and go back and polish. The gold is in the reworking. And I make sure to schedule myself plenty of time so I’m not rushed.
Terrific post, Lorraine and I couldn’t agree more. Good enough IS good enough for a first draft as long as it’s your personal first draft and not the client’s. Client’s first draft better be gold. 🙂
@Melody: “The gold is in the reworking.” Absolutely. I’m a lousy typist, so I even leave in typos on first go-’round–as well as shorthand notes for myself: “Quote goes here” “research on XYZ goes here”. Then I go back and fill in second time around and polish and refine on subsequent drafts.
@Roberta: Agree. Client gets perfect, polished copy. My first draft to clients is, in reality, my 4th or 5th draft.
I used to be a feature writer and of course struggled at first to write incisive, witty articles that set the tone and atmosphere of the place/person/gizmo I was writing about. Best advice I got was not far from this: after you’ve done your first paragraph, throw it away, it’s usually useless. After a while of doing this, I obviously moved on to starting with the second paragraph and never bothered with a first paragraph at all.
I’m not sure how this translates in copywriting terms, probably as “throw out the first sentence”.
Love point 5 about boosting self-confidence. I’m sure I’m not the only one to look at a brief and think, “Drat, they caught me out this time. What am I supposed to do with all this? Who do I know that specialises in small batch extrusion?” But once the draft is down, I can see what’s wrong and start beating it up.
I usually throw out the first 2-3 paragraphs of ‘warm-up’ copy and find the gold deeper in.
@Michael: I chortled out loud at the small batch extrusion reference. Reminds me of the “marketorial” packages I used to write for an information company–I covered everything everything from pet food to cheese-making machinery to the auto parts after-market (don’t ask.).
@Roberta I should throw out WAY more opening paragraphs.
Oh god, my head feels all messy just thinking about doing this! I have to admit- this is a big problem for me – spending 2 hours on a ‘first draft’. Must Try this Tonight…
I’m experimenting with an approach to client feedback that takes this a step further. I run a case study programme for one client and we have a system where I send them an unproofed rough first draft for technical feedback. I then write a second draft, get it proofread and drop it into a design template for another round of comments, including feedback from the case study customer. Because I typically get feedback from four or five different people at the first stage, this saves proofreading and polishing two versions. It also speeds up the production process for my client. The key thing is to make sure my client and commenters understand that it is a ROUGH first draft otherwise I get a lot of needless stylistic feedback.