Everyone has a shitty first draft. It's part of life, just like the sun is a star and you are on earth it’s inevitable. Everyone starts and ends them differently, like a musician with a pencil or pen we can interpret these things differently but in the end, we will still be left to our own devices. Just like you will still be left with a shitty first draft after reading this. Sorry. If you do continue to read this shitty draft then you might learn a thing or two about an aspiring journalist who is sitting in a college dorm room wondering if this piece will be any use to you. If not you can always try and enjoy my poor humor that is most likely wrongly conveyed through text...and real life
Tip number 1:
Start at the body paragraphs. While writing a shitty draft I like to start at the body paragraphs and let it all out aka free write. Freewriting is just a like throwing a bunch of fruits into a blender adding some ice and calling it a smoothie. It is not a smoothie because any good smoothie maker would know that oranges and blueberries do not always go. A good writer should know to write with ease at first then organize your body paragraphs into sections. Sections that you would find all your information about that subject in one spot. This is when you want to fix your spelling, grammar, cross your “t’s” and dot your “I’s”. This way you just saved $5 for not buying Jamba Juice!
Tip number 2:
To put a car together you need the front and the back. The front to myself is the intro paragraph because you would never buy that Calvin Klein dress if the front didn’t look as good as the back. The back is your conclusion. Now that you have all your ideas down you can get to pulling the reader in. In the movie The Matrix there is a scene where a girl in a red dress goes by and the main character can not help but stare at her, this could be for multiple reasons but with that Calvin Klein red dress was eyeing in on his desires. You have to make your piece be what the reader is looking for even if you are writing about that new Mcdonald's down the street to the person only eats raw vegan food and “wouldn’t dare touch any meat especially processed.” You eat that double cheeseburger with pride and be the girl in the red dress.
Tip number 3:
Would you ever read a book without a title? Now 9/10 college students do not read in their spare time, some may say the have too much homework, they can’t read two books at a time or the majority will just tell you they don’t like to read. When I walk into Barnes and Nobles the smell of new books hits me and I am either looking for a new cooking book or something sassy to read. If I wanted to go on a trip to California and I'm looking at travel books about Alaska because the “Alaska for dummies” and “California for dummies” look the exact same I am going to wonder why this author is telling me it is going to snow 87% of the time. I will look utterly ridiculous with my snow suit on instead of my swimsuit in Malibu. Your title should be an accurate representation of what you are talking about in your piece. This should also draw the reader in, it is the first thing they will see!
Tip number 4:
Go over your work and read it out loud. “Say it loud, say it proud!” (The little Mermaid) when you read your work out loud you can see what makes sense and what does not. This is when you fix your final piece because after following these 4 steps your essay will either be inappropriate for your professor or the best shit he/ she has ever read. To each their own.
Remember your brain is like a button and when you keep pressing the button saying think think think then it stalls out but if you clean your mind it will come to you more naturally. Just like if you have ever forgotten a place or movie title and dwelled on it? Well, it would come much easier and smoother if you think about something else.
