The “Good Girl Draft”

There’s a version of me that still tries to earn my way into a room. She doesn’t ask permission or take up space. She smooths and edits herself before anyone else has a chance to edit her.

Do you know this move? It’s training/survival. It’s the long education many of us received in how to be palatable, pleasant, easy, “pretty,” not “too much.”

I see it in myself, and I’ve also seen it so much in drafts from writers who work with me that I’ve started calling it the “good girl draft”. The draft that wants to be liked and tries to be believed. The draft that wants to plug every hole and make itself impossible to dismiss.

If you’re cringing with recognition, here’s a simple and radical thought: You do not have to write that draft forever. (More on this below.)

The “good girl draft” often sounds like:

• Let me explain—
• Maybe it’s just me, but…
• I know this might sound [insert negative attribute]
• This is probably silly, but…
• I don’t know if this makes sense…

It’s the draft that adds context before the reader has even been oriented on the page and qualifies the truth so it won’t get you in trouble. It’s never angry, oh, no. Anger is tidied into “nuance” and longing into “a thought I had.” It over-explains because somewhere, deep down, we all learned we wouldn’t be believed otherwise.

If you’ve been dismissed and talked over (raises hand), if you’ve had your reality doubted or been given a gold star for being agreeable, doesn’t it make sense that your writing, too, would reach for over-explanation?

The impulse to explain isn’t a flaw.

It’s simply what you learned when your reality got questioned once too often, when you were told you were too sensitive, too dramatic, or that you were making a story up. (No wonder you bring evidence in the form of receipts and footnotes, and turn your own experience into something you had to prove!)

But your work does not need to be “pretty” to be worthy. The idea that you have to sound “reasonable” to be respected just isn’t true when we find our reader, the one who does believe us. (They are out there. Trust this.)

The idea that if you offer enough caveats, enough softness, enough disclaimers, the world will finally stop trying to misunderstand you is not true. The revision move isn’t more explanation, it’s actually the opposite. Let your lines stand without apologizing for them.

If you allow yourself to tell the truth without packaging it as a permission slip, good things will happen in your writing life. You have readers who will love you for being direct, even for being sharp. 

The craft of not explaining

On the page, explanation tells us what happened, but experience lets us feel it. 

Instead of “I felt ashamed,” give us the smallest physical fact: the way your throat closes when you hear your own name. Instead of telling why the character is right, show us her hands gripping the counter edge, knuckles white, while she says “I’m fine” in that voice that’s too even. Instead of defending your memory, give us the chair, the light, the smell, the exact sentence that landed like a slap.

You don’t have to convince us! You only have to render the truth for us. We’ll believe you even more if you do not hedge.

Three revision ideas for leaving the good girl draft behind

1. Delete the permission sentence. Find one line where you ask for approval and delete it.
Before: “I know this might sound dramatic, but I think my mother didn’t actually like me very much.”
After: “My mother didn’t like me very much.”

(If you feel panic, good. That panic is the “good girl” training leaving your body.)

2. Replace explanation with one anchor detail. Where you’ve explained, add one concrete sensory fact such as a sound, texture, small action, or object.

3. Write one paragraph that refuses to be “nice.” This doesn’t necessarily mean being cruel (but it could). The main thing is to be true. Write the paragraph the good girl draft wouldn’t allow.

Try this (10 minutes)

Take a page in your notebook and draw a line down the middle.

• On the left, write: What I was taught to be (to be loved / safe / believed)
• On the right, write: What my draft is actually trying to say

Write quickly, then circle one sentence on the right and write it again without any qualifying phrases. Then add one concrete image.

If you’ve been writing the good girl draft, my intention here is not to encourage you to feel shame about this. I think there is real intelligence in adapting to the world that doesn’t value or trust our word.

But, when you’re ready, choose something else. Write a draft that does not beg, perform, or contort itself into acceptability.

Your writing doesn’t need to ask for permission.

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