Completing the first draft of any story has always been a challenge for me. Once I get close to the all important end, I sometimes aggressively avoid writing the conclusion at all because I’m aware that my creativity will stall as I grumble my way through a thesaurus even though I know I should save my detail-sweating for future drafts.

Lately, I switched tactics and it seems to be working.

To avoid getting caught up on words choices, I avoid the words altogether! (I’ll explain) Instead of feeling stifled by choosing the right way to express every little detail, I slap down the bare necessities in script form. Speech tags have basically become stage directions (it’s what they are anyway).

---

Example using a scene between professional young hero Eric/Waveform and supervillains Dr Volkow and Neutrino:

Eric: You can’t tell me that! I suck at lying! 

Neutrino: Everybody can lie. It’s human nature, buddy. 

Eric: Then I’m not human or something because I can’t knowingly lie to save my life. 

Volkow: How about to save your mother’s life? 

Eric: (desperate) Or my mother’s life! 

[The villains exchange dubious and amused glances.] 

Eric: I’m serious. 

[They look at him.] 

Neutrino: Tell me I’m the prettiest purple llama you’ve ever seen. Just, blurt it. You can’t mess that up. 

Eric: (…) You’re the p-prettiest p-purp—uh, urple llama that, um…  

[They stare at him strangely.] 

Neutrino: Wow. 

Volkow: That was atrocious. Tell me I’m shorter than you.  

Eric: (twitches) You’re sh-shorter than me. 

[They exchange glances again, whispering.] 

Volkow: We shouldn’t have told him. 

Neutrino: Now what do we do? 

---

Over the past year, I’ve switched to this method exclusively and it has been amaaaaaaaazing. I’ve been able to stay focused on the story instead of getting distracted by word choices and sentence structure.

Of course, everybody’s got a method that works for them at different times. Presently, for me, this is it.

What about you guys? How do you tackle first drafts?