The Killer Was Me All Along

How I survived writing my first draft

Writing the first draft of my novel felt like a constant knife fight with myself. I made it out alive, but I have an excessive amount of oozing stab wounds.

It was ten long months of starting and stopping. Thinking I was a plotter only to learn I was more of a pantser. Trying to write pretty, then deciding to write bad on purpose. Chasing word count goals. Discovering I don’t know how to write a fight scene. Stopping. Starting. Stopping again. Until I finally typed the last word.

The idea came to me from a simple dream. I was locked in a dressing room of sorts when the power shut off and one bright red light appeared. The light blinked like a phone suddenly ringing when you’re home alone. Loud and jarring. A giant rock settling into my gut the second I saw it. So naturally I pressed the button.

A screen lit up telling me the rules of the game. Or if I were in a Scream movie, I answered the phone only to be asked “What’s your favorite scary movie?”

I didn’t have a choice about whether I wanted to play. Just by pressing the button, I was already part of it. Only in my dream, I never got to the point where Ghostface showed up to gut me. I was just shown the game.

Perform or die.

The dream was short. Ambiguous. But it did its job as the opening act. It got my attention. I needed to keep watching to see what happens next. I needed to find out who the new Ghostface of this story was.

Act I was exciting. The news media is talking about a murder in town, and everyone begins speculating who did it. Who were the suspects? What was their motive?

For me, that looked like my brain only being able to think about this dream. It was an intriguing plot. But I needed to know why. I started brainstorming. I brain dumped everything. I even outlined an entire short story around the idea.

And just when I decided to start writing it, Ghostface showed up and dragged his knife across my idea’s throat until it bled out. I took that as a sign. I needed to dig deeper. There was something more here. I could feel it in my bones. Something that spoke to my very real life experiences around the concept of performance. So I decided to make it into a whole ass book.

I started listening to all the novel-writing podcasts, reading all the books about writing a book, and convinced myself I needed to learn everything there was to know before I was even allowed to begin.

That’s when analysis paralysis set in.

You know that part in a Scream movie where you have no idea who the killer is? Everyone becomes a suspect.

I didn’t know which advice to follow. Was it Save the Cat? The three-act structure? First person? Third?

Finally, I decided to channel that Gale Weathers energy and push forward. I just started writing. I gave myself permission to begin even though I didn’t have all the answers. It took me six long months to write Act I. Six months to painfully learn the purpose of a first draft. To watch things pan out in ways I didn’t expect. To get stabbed repeatedly by Ghostface but survive by learning something new each time.

The first lesson nearly killed me.

Don’t try to make the first chapter perfect.

I rewrote my opening three times. Three. And guess what? When I finally reached the end of the novel and reread it, I realized it was all wrong anyway. It took me writing the end to learn how it should begin. That doesn’t mean I’m a horrible writer. It simply means I didn’t understand the full story yet.

As I kept going, I hit another wall. When I started writing the book I had an overall idea of certain events that took place, but I didn’t know how I would get to them. After the first few chapters without a roadmap, I got stuck. That is when I realized I needed a real plan. I was faced with the ultimate question authors are asked all the time:

Am I a pantser or a plotter?

I saw myself as a plotter. As someone who struggles with anxiety, not knowing what comes next literally terrifies me. I’m someone who needs to know the plan to function. I don’t like the chaos of not knowing.

Or so I thought.

I ended up turning to more craft books. I read Story Genius, and it helped me understand my main protagonist on a deeper level. I developed her backstory, her misbelief, and all the reasons why she makes the choices she does. It also showed me how to use scene cards to map out each scene.

But when I tried to plan every scene, something unexpected happened. The characters decided to surprise me and take a different course of action. I would spend so much time planning each scene and trying to stay within those parameters, but it was a waste of time for me. I felt lost, creatively boxed in, frustrated even. I started to wonder if I was even capable of moving forward. Just when I thought I knew who Ghostface was, they showed up and killed that suspect, aka the plotter persona I tried to play.

It was ironic. The woman who needs to always be one step ahead in everyday life to function needed to release control to write her book. Now I wouldn’t classify myself as a full-on pantser. I still need some type of outline. I decided to use loose outlines, with just a couple sentences for each scene. This allowed me to move forward and, quite frankly, was fun. I flew through most of Act II once I stopped trying to control everything. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure how Act III would go and discovered it while writing Act II.

I did come to another halt when it was time to write the chapters for the second POV. She is technically a second protagonist. Her role isn’t as forward facing as my main girl but still her story is just as important. When I did my character work in early Act I, I did not focus on my second protagonist, and that came around to bite me in the ass when it was time to write her chapters. That brought me to another lesson..

Know your characters deeply. Know your main characters backstory, including the antagonist.

It’s so important to spend time with them and figure out who they were before they stepped into your story. And yes, that means writing backstories, origin stories, core turning points to discover what led them to their misbelief. Most of that will not be in the book, but it will help you understand the character and write from their view of the world and in their unique voice. (Side note, for Act I and II I wrote and focused on one POV at a time. That allowed me to truly live in their voice and story without having to bounce back and forth. By the third act, I knew them well enough to be able to alternate.)

I was finally moving forward with the story, but my attention was being pulled in too many different directions. I wasn’t able to give 100% to anything. I couldn’t keep going like that.

I had to focus on one thing at a time and minimize the distractions.

I was doing way too much. Trying to build my social media presence, writing short stories, posting weekly on Substack, maintaining a huge garden I started from seed. On top of that, I have a full-time job. I’m a mom and a wife. The list goes on.

I had to get serious with myself. Was I going to let Ghostface kill this book, or was I going to fight back?

If you know me, I’m a fighter. The first thing to go was social media. The posting and the consuming. It took up too much space in my head, and I hated the way it made me feel anyway. That alone made my mental health better.

Then I cut the rest of the noise. No more short stories. Less TV. Less podcasts. I didn’t need something filling every moment. I needed quiet. Because all that noise was fogging up my brain and making it harder to think clearly.

Now, I still had to keep my full-time job, so I needed a realistic writing schedule.

One that actually fit my life. I couldn’t write every day. On days I went into the office, my brain was fried by the time I got home. So I committed to four days a week. Whether I felt like it or not, I showed up. I set word count goals. I didn’t always hit them, but they kept me going.

Finally, I was building momentum. Every writing day I was moving the needle. I was dodging all the Ghostface attacks but still didn’t know who it was.

Then I got to Act III, where a lot of action was taking place, and I quickly realized I don’t know anything about writing a fight scene. I didn’t want to lose momentum trying to learn a new skill, so I left a placeholder. I wrote the bones and kept going.

Why spend so much time perfecting something that might not even survive revisions?

That’s when I learned momentum matters more than perfection in a first draft.

After all the lessons and stab wounds, I finally reached my final girl moment. I typed the last words of the draft.

Still standing. Still breathing. Bleeding.

And that’s when I finally understood the purpose of the first draft.

THE FIRST DRAFT IS YOU TELLING YOURSELF THE STORY

I did not fully understand my story until I finished writing it. Hell, I don’t think I even knew half the things were going to happen until I wrote them. Once I embraced the concept of the shitty first draft, I gave myself permission to write badly so I could actually get to know my story. And it’s one that I truly love. So much of my heart is in it. And now that it’s done, I realize it’s perfect for one simple reason.

IT EXISTS.

But even after finishing the draft, there was something else I couldn’t shake. A feeling I carried throughout the entire process. Something I had to face time after time.

Self doubt.

It’s the voice that questions everything. The voice that keeps whispering, not good enough. The voice that makes you want to start over or quit.

Mine would tell me all the reasons I’m not a real writer. My writing is too simple. It doesn’t sound intelligent enough. Who do you think you are to write a book? No one cares. It will go nowhere.

I kept waiting for the reveal. Waiting to unmask Ghostface. And when I finally did, it wasn’t a psycho boyfriend, or a jealous, fame-seeking cousin, or a crazy super fan.

It was JUST ME.

I’m proud of myself for pushing through and winning the battle that was draft one. But the truth is, she will never disappear. She’ll be waiting for me in draft two.

Only this time, I’ll be two steps ahead of her. Knife in hand.

And I’ll know how to keep writing.