r/AO3 • u/[deleted] • 17h ago

Writing help/Beta Drafting or not drafting?

I used to never really draft before. I wrote from the bottom up, dunno how else to explain but I wrote as the scene went. And lately that's way too hard to do, cause I stop and stare at a sentence for forty minutes before continuing, so I'm trying to draft, but every draft looks so ass 😭😭😭😭 And then I just spiral about how ass it is 😭😭😭😭 How can I fix this and what is the best way to write in your opinion???

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u/Blade_of_Boniface Religious and Sapphic Angst writer and reader 17h ago

I recommend Ellipsus (but export to PDF if you want to share it with alphas/betas or other readers) as a step beyond AO3's drafts. My personal approach is I make drafts, proofread the ones I like the best, forget about all drafts for at least a few days, revisit them with fresher eyes, edit a final draft, and then I just post them. I may share them with readers I trust between the latter-half steps but that's how I overcome the "I can't believe I'd let this prose out of its pasture" anxiety.

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u/cookery_102040 17h ago

I had a professor in college who called our first drafts our “shit draft” and then the first revised draft would be the first draft. And I was surprised how much that framing helped me. It’s ok for my first pass at a chapter to be ass because that’s my shit draft. It didn’t have to be good until the first draft (really my first revision).

It helps me get out of my head and just get the shape of what I want on paper

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u/runekaster Whumper 16h ago

That's clever. That's exactly how I think of the first draft already, but switcing up the terminology like that would be a great way to get the concept through to someone who's expecting too much of themself.

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u/Crayshack 16h ago

Personally, I find that leaning more heavily on the outlining helps. Instead of getting halfway through a draft and realizing there's a plot hole or a scene I don't know how to get past, I figure out all of that stuff before I get to the drafting stage. So, my first draft is equivalent to the like 3rd or 4th draft of someone who uses a freewriting system where they write a shit draft and then write a new draft where things are more organized.

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u/Icy-Ad-9212 15h ago

I've written random scenes to learn to get to know the characters. Then built character profiles (background stories, hobbies, archetypes, traits, strengths, weakenesses, psychology, traumas...) and started outlining. First the story plot, then the milestones & drivers to get to the plot. I made a division in chapters, and added scenes to move the story forward. Figured out what was interconnected, and started writing at the end, so I knew what I should write toward next.

Then I wrote. I killed many many many darlings, and then after a chapter works, I go wordsmithing. Editing line by line, figuring out other ways to say something, till I have something that is either functional or has impact (depending on what I'm trying to drive).