Nobody writes a good first draft. What you write is raw material: a version of the story that exists, so you finally have something to work with. Some first-draft habits, though, cost more than others. They don't merely leave a mess to tidy up; they bury the problem in the foundations, which makes the whole thing far harder to repair. Here are twelve faults that turn up again and again in early drafts, with the practical moves that sort them out.

1. Characters who only do what the plot needs

Mistake one: background figures with no life of their own. If the neighbour exists only to mention that the road is closed, they are furniture. Give them one want, one opinion, one detail that serves no purpose at all, and they will start to read as a person.

Mistake two: a protagonist who wants nothing. A character who only reacts gives the reader nothing to follow. Before you revise, write a single line at the top of each scene: what does she want here, and what will she do to get it? If you can't answer either question, the scene has no engine.

Mistake three: an antagonist with no logic. Cruelty that exists because the plot requires cruelty reads as cardboard. Write half a page from their point of view, in their voice, explaining why their actions are reasonable. You never have to use it. You simply have to know it.

2. A middle that sags

Mistake four: nothing changes. The first third sets everything up, the final third resolves it, and the middle drifts. Try this: list every scene in one sentence and mark what is different at the end of it. A relationship altered, a secret exposed, a decision taken. If a scene leaves the world exactly as it found it, cut it or merge it with the one beside it.

Mistake five: subplots that never touch the main story. A subplot should complicate the main want, or the main want should change how the subplot resolves. If the two never meet, one of them is a separate story wearing the wrong coat.

3. Scenes that start too early and end too late

This is the most common cause of a draft that feels slow even when plenty is happening. You open on a character parking the car, walking to the door, making tea, and only then getting to the argument.

Read the first paragraph of each scene and ask: would a reader be lost if I began here? Usually they wouldn't. Start where the trouble starts. Then look at the last beat, where characters often summarise what has just happened in case we missed it. Cut that too. You want the reader to leave the scene slightly unsettled, not neatly briefed.

4. Dialogue that explains instead of revealing

It looks like this:

"I'm not the girl who left this town, Dad. I'm a different person now, and you have to accept that."

Nobody speaks like that. Real conversation is partial, evasive, and full of things left unsaid. So let your characters talk past each other: answer a different question, change the subject, refuse to engage. Let one of them say the wrong thing and then try to cover it. If a line exists purely to inform the reader, move that information somewhere else and let the people in the room behave badly instead.

5. Point of view and backstory drift

Mistake nine: head-hopping. A scene begins in one character's head and quietly slips into another's, so the reader loses their footing. Pick one viewpoint per scene and stay inside what that person can see, hear and reasonably infer. If you need the other mind, start a new scene or a new chapter.

Mistake ten: backstory delivered in a lump. Four pages of childhood history on page twenty slows everything to a halt. Instead, hand it out in pieces, and only when the present scene makes it urgent. A memory lands harder when something on the table triggers it: an object, a smell, an argument that goes one step too far.

6. An ending that arrives before it's earned

A rushed ending is rarely a problem with the ending itself. It is a problem with the middle. The character forgives, or wins, or walks away, and we don't believe it because we haven't watched them get there.

Fix it from the back. Decide what the final scene proves about your protagonist, then work backwards and plant at least three moments earlier that make that change plausible: a small failure, a temptation refused or given in to, a conversation that shifts something. Give the last scene one extra beat of discomfort, too. Endings that tie everything off neatly often feel false, because life doesn't tidy itself away on cue.

7. Polishing before the story works

Mistake eleven: line-editing sentences while the structure is still wrong. You will cut whole paragraphs later, and every hour spent perfecting them is wasted. Write through to the end. If a phrase pleases you, note it in a separate file and keep moving.

Mistake twelve: rewriting the opening chapter twenty times. The beginning is the hardest part to write, because it has to do so much with so little room, and it is far easier once you know what the story is actually about. Leave it rough. Go to the end. Come back.

A practical pass-through before you redraft

Work in order, biggest problems first. Fixing sentences before the structure is sound is like papering a wall that is still moving.

1. Read the whole draft in one sitting without a pen. Note only where you were bored and where you were confused.
2. Write a one-line summary of every scene, then mark what changes by the end of it.
3. Check that your protagonist wants something in every scene, and that the want costs them something.
4. Read the dialogue aloud. Anything you would never say, rewrite.
5. Ask of the final scene: what does this prove, and where did I plant the evidence?
6. Only now edit the prose, one pass for clarity, one for rhythm.

First drafts are supposed to be flawed. The trick is knowing which flaws matter and dealing with those first, then letting the smaller ones fall away as you go. Give yourself permission to write badly, and give yourself a method for making it better.

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