Alle responds to: "First draft, I'm stuck."

"I don't know how to progress. Should I scrap it and try something different?"

I started writing my first story almost a year ago. The first two chapters just flowed out of me. Chapter three took a bit more effort, and chapter four stalled halfway through. Since then, I haven't gone back to it. Should I scrap it?

Alle sez:

Writing is harder than it would appear …

Many, many of my students have that great time you describe, at the beginning. It just flows. Then, they hit the hard stuff. “Where is this story going? What is the ending? Who are the other characters? Is this good enough? Wait! What about (insert idea, any idea, that distracts from having to figure out the rest of this book ).”

There is no answer other than to drill down and work through it. Until you have a finished draft, there is nothing else to do: you can't revise or edit, you can't look for an agent or self-publish. You gotta get that draft done!

What helps me:

• Five minutes a day: Commit to writing this small amount every day. Writing does not have to happen in the same place or at the same time each day—although that practice does help, for consistency. Just make yourself write for five minutes. That time will grow all on its own.

• Don’t proceed chronologically: Go to the part of the story that you know and write that. Connect your islands of fiction in a later draft.

• First draft = “barf” draft: Don’t spend a lot of time correcting more than spelling and grammar, unless something comes up, plot-wise, that changes everything. That aside, don’t worry about stuff you don’t know yet. Just get that stupid, bad, first draft down.

  • Chances are, you have an image for the final scene. If you have that image, or when it flashes, find a graphic that you can write toward when you get stuck. You can say aloud, “How do I get from here to my final image?”

  • The surfing image above is the final images I wrote toward for Crazy Medicine (my work-in-progress). The beach sunset is As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back.

  • Spin fantasies about your characters without feeling the need to write them down. Do that while you run, cook, or do housework. If possible, when the link to the work occurs to you, go write.

  • Keep a written list of ideas and maybe some notes for the other ideas that will pop up, little devils to distract you as you labor toward your final image. Resist the urge to switch projects. Get that first draft down.