Blue Quote by Jacqueline Susann

When I'm writing the first draft, I'm writing in a very slovenly way: anything to get the outline of the story on paper.

— Pat Barker

Once I've got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be…

— Colleen McCullough

First drafts are for learning what your story is about.

— Bernard Malamud

The first draft is for YOU, the writer; the second and subsequent drafts are for the reader. Trying to do both things at once…

— Karen Karbo

“Your job during or just after the first draft is to decide what something or somethings yours is about. Your job in the second…

— Stephen King

“Get your story written, you always have the second and third draft to fix things like tense, 1st vs 3rd person, the exact right…

— Andromeda Edison

I write to find out what the story means to me, that is what I try to do especially with the first draft.

— Wally Lamb

It's more like I write multiple first drafts, handwritten. So with my first novel, I wrote whole drafts from different points of view. There…

— Lauren Groff

“There would seem to be four stages in the composition of a story. First comes the germ of the story, then a period of…

— Malcolm Cowley

“Writers know all the good reasons for subjecting their work to a sharp trim. Early drafts are notorious for repetition, indirection and overdevelopment of…

— Pamela Erens

I generally write a first draft that's pretty lean. Just get the story down.

— Nora Roberts

I get to a certain point, and I think in a novel it's about the third draft, when I want other eyes on it.

— Alice Mattison