Writing With Ai The Power Of The Smarmy First Draft

Essays Exploring Craft and the Writing Life “Shitty first drafts,” says Anne Lamott, “are how writers end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” Alexandra O’Connell calls it the Ugly Duckling Draft. Austin Kleon, The Down Draft (just get it down). In Seven Drafts, I call it The Vomit Draft, but also quote Jenny Elder Moke, “y’all quit calling your first drafts garbage. What you’ve got there is a Grocery Draft.

Put everything you bought on the counter and figure out what’s for dinner.” My own writing process doesn’t involve an entire shitty first draft, because I don’t write to the end before I go back and fix. Each day I work on a novel, I start by revising what I wrote the day before, cleaning up that scene and feeling the rhythm for the next one. At the end of a writing session, I leave rough notes for the next scene—scraps of dialogue, action details, character development that must happen. Yesterday’s writing is the springboard to a better draft. When I sit down to those notes and fragments, Yesterday-Me has left a glorious gift for Today-Me: the gift of knowing where to start.

Like that Dutch thing where they abandon their children in the woods in the middle of the night to make them find their way home (not kidding!), but with a compass. “Shitty first drafts,” says Anne Lamott, “are how writers end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” Alexandra O’Connell calls it the Ugly Duckling Draft. Austin Kleon, The Down Draft (just get it down). In Seven Drafts, I call it The Vomit Draft, but also quote Jenny Elder Moke, “y’all quit calling your first drafts garbage. What you’ve got there is a Grocery Draft.

Put everything you bought on the counter and figure out what’s for dinner.” My own writing process doesn’t involve an entire shitty first draft, because I don’t write to the end before I go back and fix. Each day I work on a novel, I start by revising what I wrote the day before, cleaning up that scene and feeling the rhythm for the next one. At the end of a writing session, I leave rough notes for the next scene—scraps of dialogue, action details, character development that must happen. Yesterday’s writing is the springboard to a better draft. When I sit down to those notes and fragments, Yesterday-Me has left a glorious gift for Today-Me: the gift of knowing where to start.

Like that Dutch thing where they abandon their children in the woods in the middle of the night to make them find their way home (not kidding!), but with a compass. Why do some writers use AI to write their first drafts while others refuse to? The difference often lies in how writers perceive their craft and role. If writers view their role as primarily communicating ideas in writing, then having AI write their first drafts is acceptable. However, if writers understand their role as artistic self-expression, then having AI write their first draft is unacceptable. If we view ourselves as primarily document producers, our job is to clearly express ideas in writing.

The focus is on function. An example of this would be technical writing or many nonfiction books. Anything that speeds up the process or improves writing is seen as positive. From this viewpoint, using AI to write a first draft makes sense. You can prompt AI with ideas and let it write the text. After some editing, a finished document can be published in a fraction of the time it would take without AI.

How will people compose text moving forward, now that every author working with a digital word processor and internet access can use generative AI? Many will likely opt to write traditionally as they did before, but some will use AI in partnership to draft. At this point, the methods a writer uses to develop a first draft feel like a dealer’s choice dilemma—ask AI to generate the draft for you, or bring some of your writing to the... If students use AI in their drafting process, I’m increasingly drawn toward advocating for the latter method. I don’t like the idea of students going to AI and prompting a first draft. I know some have argued that this could be a helpful method to fight the blank-page anxiety most writers feel.

Others view this as helping maturing writers by giving them a template or outline to help them organize and scaffold their ideas. I think there may be some value in those approaches, especially in terms of helping struggling students who might otherwise balk at writing, but all of these approaches assume a maturing writer will then... Those of us who’ve taught first-year writing likely raised a questioning eyebrow at that idea. Students struggle quite a bit when writing. For many, that struggle is a productive one, helping them exercise habits of thinking and self-inquiry, testing ideas, taking creative risks, and often failing. Anne Lamott’s Shitty First Drafts lays bare this process with frank elegance.

I wish developers of LLMs would read it because as Lamott puts it, there’s a profound disconnect in how many fail to divorce the reality of the writing process from the end product: People tend to look at successful writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million... But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. That fantasy of the uninitiated doesn’t see the often maddening process that goes into shaping and forming the words and sentences on the page. Lamott does a wonderful job of articulating this struggle and demystifying it: I don’t use AI at all.

I was happy that I found a way to turn it off on Word. I don’t like that so many bloggers use it for images and now create songs with it. It is also terrible for the environment. I know lots of things are, and I still drive, use plastic, but why should we add to it? I’m so pleased Wendy is doing well. Hi, there, sweet girl!

Wendy says “Hey!” to you (or, I guess, “Meow.”) It’s interesting to see how many readers don’t like AI and try to avoid it. It’s a pity we have to try to avoid it. We should have the option to turn it off. I see it when I open Zoom for a meeting with friends, or when I open Adobe, or even when I use DuckDuckGo for research. That damn AI “assistant” is always there. I don’t use it, but I wish I could make it go away.

Remember Clippy from the very early days of Word, that animated paper clip that was supposed to “help” you as you worked in Word. Everyone hated Clippy. I think Bill Gates even hated Clippy. AI reminds me of Clippy. Stop writing boring drafts. This guide shows you how to use AI to tighten pacing in a first draft, from macro-plot analysis to sentence-level surgery.

Practical, no-BS tips. That feeling in your gut when you reread your first draft? That’s not indigestion. It’s the cold, dawning horror that the lightning-fast thriller in your head has somehow become a 400-page slog about a guy thinking about making coffee. Your characters wander, your scenes meander, and the tension has all the punch of a wet noodle. You’ve created a narrative DMV.

Let’s get one thing straight: pacing isn't some mystical art form gifted only to MFA grads. It's a mechanical problem of tension, information, and rhythm. And for the first time in history, we have a ridiculously powerful mechanic on call. The question writers are asking has shifted from 'How do I fix my pacing?' to 'Can you show me how to use AI to tighten pacing in a first draft?' The answer is a... But not by hitting a 'make it good' button. It’s about using AI as a ruthless, tireless diagnostic tool to find the rot so you can cut it out with surgical precision.

This isn't about letting a machine write for you; it's about letting it hold up a mirror to your manuscript's flabby, misshapen core. Before we unleash the bots, we need to agree on what we're fixing. Most writers think pacing is about making things happen fast. This is why their action scenes are a blur of confusing choreography and their quiet moments are nonexistent. They're wrong. Pacing is not about speed; it's about pressure and release.

It’s the controlled manipulation of a reader's emotional state. A slow pace isn't inherently bad—a quiet, creeping dread can be far more effective than a car chase. A fast pace isn't inherently good—non-stop action without stakes is just noise. The real art is in the variation, the rhythm that pulls a reader forward. As noted in a study from the Journal of Narrative Theory, effective pacing is about managing the reader's access to information to create suspense, surprise, and emotional investment. Your first draft fails at this because it’s a brain dump.

It's filled with scenes that exist only to get a character from A to B, dialogue that over-explains, and paragraphs of backstory you thought were brilliant but actually stop the story dead. According to a Writer's Digest analysis, the most common pacing mistake is front-loading exposition before the reader has any reason to care. In this episode, explore why generative AI excels at creating first drafts. You’ll discover the key difference between first and final drafts in the writing process. You’ll understand why AI’s creative, probabilistic nature makes it ideal for getting initial ideas down. You’ll learn how to leverage AI for the messy “ugly first draft,” saving you time and effort.

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