Understanding the Sacred Rough Draft

Looking at the title of this blog post, you may be asking "Why is the rough draft sacred?" Well, the answer is simple: your rough draft is the foundation of your story. To be fair though, the brainstorming is the thing that comes first when writing a book or a story, but the rough draft is what gets your story off the ground.

(UIW_Oct. 27, 2014)

During my time at both the University of the Incarnate Word and Our Lady of the Lake University, I, along with many other students, would be told numerous times that the rough draft wasn't the final draft, and it would never be the finished product. Usually, the first time around is where you can point out a lot of errors--mechanical (spelling, grammar, punctuation) and literal (having to do with story, ex. plot holes, inconsistencies, etc.).
And my writing professors were right. As I've mentioned, the rough draft is nothing more than a foundation for your story. And as you know, the foundation is what holds up, say, a house. Would you sell a house that only had the foundation and other construction problems? The same is true here: Would you publish a story/book that was only Draft #1, and it had so many problems going for it?
When I was writing Dolphin Princess (the first book), I remember there being a lot of errors, and a lot of changes to the story. And let me tell you: that happens. Whenever you have new ideas, you find yourself making changes over and over.

(UIW_Oct. 27, 2014)

And that's why many writing teachers will tell you to go back and finish your manuscripts. I had a handful of teachers that would operate like so. They would have us write a story (our rough draft), and then we would workshop each other's pieces in class. Afterwards, the instructor(s) would have us revise and edit our papers. This taught me the importance of perfecting a story. If the story didn't sound right, then it has to be fixed, right? In fact, all writers have to do that. You won't see a writer publish Draft 1 of their stories. You won't see J.K. Rowling do that, you won't see Joshua Robbins do that (I had Dr. Robbins as a professor a couple of times at UIW), etc. No author uses Draft 1, no poet uses it either.

And that's why the Rough Draft is sacred, because you're building off of it, not using it for publication. You have the foundation, so now you have to build the rest of the house.

TO BUY BOOK 1: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dolphin-princess-veronica-gonzalez/1129202183

TO PRE-ORDER BOOK 2: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1130458196?ean=9781987021233

Veronica Gonzalez