I finally stopped writing for the "perfect" first sentence

My critique group leader told me to just vomit words on the page and fix it later. For years I thought she was wrong. I spent hours on opening lines and got nowhere. Then NanoWriMo last November I had no choice. Wrote 50k words of pure garbage. But guess what? Three of those garbage scenes turned into the best stuff I've ever written after I went back and cleaned them up. Has anyone else had a writing rule they ignored for ages that turned out to be right?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowanharris1d ago

just fill the bucket with rocks first" - that's going on my wall.

bennett.nora3d ago

My first NaNoWriMo back in 2012 taught me the same lesson. I had this rule where I'd rewrite the first page until it felt perfect before moving on. That year I got to page 30 and just stopped. Months later I went back and realized that perfect first page was holding back the whole story. The real good stuff started on page 31 after I finally let go. Now I tell myself "just fill the bucket with rocks first, you can sort the pretty pebbles later." That garbage draft gave me a whole subplot I never would've found if I kept polishing that first sentence.