Jan
23rd
2014
First Drafts · 4:05am Jan 23rd, 2014
Or: Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamott.
We all make them. Sometimes we think those better than us don't. They do.
Some of you may be writing. Some of you may be procrastinating from writing. I know I'm the latter. So if you feel the need for a break or just want to procrastinate while still feeling you've accomplished something related to writing today, here you go.
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Material Defender · 232 views
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I can personally attest to first drafts being shitty as well.
Ghost Recon: Phantom Hunt version 1 (unpublished): Ghosts go to Equestria, meet the Mane 6 and princesses, and fight a Russian PMC to keep a Russian megacorp from taking over Equestria and stripmining the whole place. In hindsight, it was sorta like Avatar, but the invaders are objectively evil in it, making it pretty generic.
Ghost Recon: Phantom Hunt version 2 (published): Ghosts and a few Special Forces teams go to Equestria six years before the return of Nightmare Moon, and are soon caught in a web of international intrigue, moral ambiguity and an ancient conspiracy. They fight for their new hosts, whom they hope can find them a way home. Humans shape the Equestria we know, and nobody will ever know save for a precious few, because they're Ghosts, and they were never there.
If the first draft was Avatar, the published one is Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
1749407 Nice examples.
I originally found the Shitty First Drafts thing on a discussion about people worrying that the quality of their writing had gone downhill since they first started improving themselves. As it turns out, it's because of that improvement that we hold ourselves to better standards, but it stifles our creativity. And the most important part of getting the words down is to let the creativity work, and let the writer comes in afterwards to clean things up so you can publish it.
1749448
Yeah. As you get better, you retroactively become aware of all the mistakes you've made in the past, but sometimes there's so much to go back and clean up that you just leave it. I mean, my first fic was good, but it need work.
As for the creativity part, I've got too many ideas that I want to use, and a lot of them would conflict with one another, so I have to pick the ones that fit the overall plan best.