On First Drafts

Gizem Karaali

July 16, 2024

A black and white, stick-figure-like scene of a female writer sitting at a desk, looking frustrated and jealous as she stares at her own writing. [Image created by ChatGPT / DALL-E on July 16, 2024.]

I am as usual late on some of my projects. One involves the drafting of an article, and I have been thinking about it for a long while now. I know this to be true for my writing process: I take forever to get started. But my first draft usually tends to come out really fast once I do get started. Anne Lamott calls those first quick drafts by a less family-friendly term but at least in my case, she is right on about their usefulness. The point of these types of first drafts is supposed to be to simply get the first chunk of gunk out of your mind so that your creative juices get replenished and you start making novel connections and see new pathways through the mess that is the outcome of the research and thinking you have already done. 

And I have usually loved my first drafts, despite their warts and blemishes. Even when the standard advice is to "kill your darlings" (and yes, I know there is some pushback to this advice), I often find myself too attached to most of mine. Not everyone loves the process of getting out a first draft, but for me, it is an exciting process of discovery.

This is what I came to realize when my collaborator sent me the first draft they wrote with the help of ChatGPT. I did not understand first why I was restless: I was having difficulty sitting down to even read the draft. A day later, I came across "Why Writing Needs Good Friction. I recognized what was going on with me when I read the author, Leon Furze, writing:


"I could, of course, turn to Generative AI to write this article for me – the ultimate reduction in friction and especially smooth compared to my current situation. But I won’t. So, as my fingers vibrate across the keyboard and ambient music on full volume drowns out the sound of crunching paper and late arrivals, I’m left wondering about how much of the friction in the writing process is “good friction”, and why writing students might sometimes be better off choosing the path of [more friction]."


This post led me to Furze's earlier post "The Myth of the AI First Draft". Furze begins with a caveat:


I know everybody doesn’t love writing as much as I do, and not every person is capable of writing. But irrespective of whether people can write, people are capable of thinking for themselves, capable of creativity, humour, and of having something valuable to say. That’s why I think there are a few reasons to be cautious of the AI first draft.


And at that moment, I totally understood my reluctance to engage with the AI draft! 

I want to do my own creative thinking! Just like when I ask ChatGPT for a list of ten possible titles for a silly poem I wrote, the output I receive is often useful and even might be inspiring, but it is almost always limiting and constrains me. I find that once the first draft is done, my focus moves on to editing, and the most generative part of the process is almost surely over. Yes, revision can be creative, and I have written many articles and essays that became so much richer in the editing and revising process, but the first lurch into the unknown promises so much more. The empty page, the white screen with the blinking cursor, these can be scary, but they also are full of mystery and adventure. And I think I want to savor the opportunity to dive into all that myself first. Then my AI friend can help me improve what I have, and I will be grateful. But I want to be jealous with my very first draft. 

What do you think? Does any of this resonate? Even if not, please do check out Furze's posts, especially if you are interested in how writing and AI interact.