A Playwright's Journey: On First Drafts

Writing first drafts (at least of full length plays) sucks!! Here's why that is A-Okay.

This year to the time of writing, I have written six ten minute plays, two 20ish page one acts, and two 3-5 page stand-alone monologues. And that’s just the completed pieces— I’m also still working on doing drafts of my newest solo show (about 50 pages), new drafts of older works (namely PIETA and The Eleventh Star), and working on the first draft of a new full length work.

Working on each type of piece feels different to me, not just depending on subject matter, but depending on length. The first draft of a ten minute play, for me, sucks a lot less than the first draft of a full length play. Heck, once or twice I’ve written one draft for a ten minute and declared it done! My shorter one acts, the 20ish pagers, I usually do about three drafts for (though my solo show about my divorce will probably take about five, maybe more depending on workshopping). My full lengths though?

Hoo boy.

My current most “successful” piece, PIETA, is on draft seven. Seven. And I assume there will be more drafts afterwards, probably upwards of ten or fifteen. The Eleventh Star? Also on draft seven. From my experience with submissions and such, my work tends to start drawing positive attention after draft four-ish, i.e. my full lengths aren’t really All That Good until that point.

The first draft of a full length play sucks ass. It is rarely any good at all, and I am cringing internally the entire time I’m writing it. And in my agony of slowly drawing the first draft of my newest work out of my brain, I found myself wondering: Is there any even vaguely scientific reason why first drafts are Dog Shit?

A cursory Google search will reveal a plethora of novelists, poets, playwrights, and more desponding over the very same thing, asking or telling each other about their awful first drafts. Frances Dowell wrote for her blog, “Everybody Shining”, an article called “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad First Draft” which spoke to my soul. She wrote: “Not only can I not respond to a writing prompt without sounding like an idiot, I have written entire first drafts of novels that have had to be more or less trashed.” I feel you, Frances. I feel you.

So, the question here is: Is the Very Terrible, Awful, Cringy-AF First Draft a valuable experience? Or should we endeavor to make our first drafts less…vomit-y?

I read many articles promising tips and tricks to make your first draft less painful to write. Most suggested similar tactics, such as: writing out of order, scheduling time to write, creating the first draft as fast as possible so you don’t have time to overthink it, outlining, take notes as you write, and to “write the first draft for yourself”. None of these, however, seem to be geared towards creating a first draft that just inherently Sucks Less. Mostly, the articles I found contained information that was aiming to help a writer just get through the first draft.

In fact, most of them advised the reader to accept “bad” writing in their first draft.

Basically, we can throw that second question out the window real fast. It seems that nobody in the writing world has tips to make a first draft inherently more “good” out of the gate. And I’m not really surprised! It seems that everyone, no matter how established and well regarded of a writer they are, agrees that the first draft is nigh always completely incomprehensible crap.

I mean, it makes sense, right? Even if you’re someone who writes outlines first, the actual writing of the draft involves a lot of discovery. Who are these characters? What is this world like? How do the characters move through it? Etc etc etc. And that sort of discovery is veeeery messy. If you’re anything like me, halfway through a first draft you get a breakthrough about the beginning of the play, and you get tempted to start again. I have done this before— but with this current one I’m endeavoring to finish the first draft completely before going back and changing stuff (I think everything just goes more smoothly in the second draft if I do that). Most of the articles I read advocated for this approach, though one or two did state that the writer shouldn’t be afraid to “start over” if necessary. In this case, your milage may vary.

So yes, most writers seem to agree that suffering through the first draft is a necessary and essential learning experience.

But let’s go back to my initial question real quick— is there a scientific reason that first drafts are usually crapola?

To begin tackling this one, I started with the brain. What parts of the writer’s brain are most active when writing? According to a brain scan study done by Dr. Martin Lotze at the University of Greifswald, the two sections of the brain that lit up the most when a writer told a story were the visual cortexes and the Broca’s area (responsible for language production). This makes sense, right? When you’re telling a story, especially one for the stage or screen, you’re thinking about what the scene looks like as well as what the characters are saying. What’s especially interesting is that Dr. Lotze found that in more experienced writers, their Broca’s area had “extra” activation. I guess these intermediate to advanced artists focused more on how the story sounded rather than the visuals it would create in the listener.

Also within the brains of experienced writers, Dr. Lotze found that their caudate nucleus responsible for extensively practiced processes lit up like crazy. In novice writers, it did not. This physically shows how the more you write, the better your brain gets at it!

So…the only way to get better first drafts…is to practice? Yup. Of course, like everything else, there are no shortcuts to gaining expert knowledge. Only hard work, practice, and perseverance. Really wish I had better news for ya (and myself), but the science proves it!

What did we learn here today, then? That first drafts suck ass for literally everybody, and that’s okay. Not only does it make logical sense, it makes scientific sense!

Ernest Hemingway himself is quoted as saying, “The first draft of anything is shit.” The first draft of what may become your masterpiece will probably make you want to cry a little bit and wonder if you were ever any good at this writing thing in the first place. Take a deep breath, give it a day or two of space— and begin draft two.

Also, just another little point I want to make here: stop being afraid to make bad art. Bad art is how we get better and eventually make Good Art. I am not only saying this to you, but to myself— trust me. You do not want to see the first draft ever of any of my full length plays. They are Bad. But the current drafts? Well…they’re kinda good! So make space for “bad”. It often leads to good, or even great.

That’s all for me, folks. I hope this article gives you a enough motivation to finish that first draft!

Happy theatre-making!
~Brynn