A first draft reads like we’ve forgotten how to spell or how to form coherent sentences. It can be repetitive, awkward, and lack the clarity we’d expect from a good piece of writing. But a first draft is better than no draft at all. A first draft is supposed to be like a sketch without any erase marks, where the lines intersect and things are not proportioned correctly.
The first draft exists for us to refine and improve our initial ideas. Its purpose is to be edited, changed, and modified until it takes a newer and better form: the second draft.
When we write our first draft, we usually don’t want anyone to read it given how badly it reads, how incoherent and confusing everything is put together. But the final draft, the finished manuscript, can’t exist without the first draft. Editing can’t begin without it either.
Fallton Havenstonne 