The first draft of a novel goes by many names. The Rough Draft. Zero Draft. Word Salad. Word Vomit. The Shitty First Draft.
That last one is a personal favorite.
Lately, though, there's another name I've been calling my roughest first drafts: The Proof of Concept Draft.
Proof of Concept Draft was a term I just kind of made up and started using when several of my coworkers talked me into letting them read the most recent version of Bound to the Heart, which was at the time the story that was closest to done. The shape it was in wasn't great, but it had been the most edited compared to Forged in the Salle or Against His Vows, the latter of which hadn't even been typed up from its handwritten draft, and A Tided Love was undergoing a total rewrite after reworking its outline.
It was my way of letting my work friends know that they were about to get a word salad that was more or less the basic idea of Bound to the Heart's characters and plot, but far from what I knew it could be and far from ready for beta readers. The draft they were getting was, quite frankly, shit, and I wanted to keep their expectations reasonable.
But ever since I started using the term "Proof of Concept Draft," my relationship with my first drafts has noticeably improved.
One of the reasons my first drafts take forever and a day to finish is the nasty perfectionist streak I've had since childhood. Even though I know a first draft's sole job is to exist, to tell yourself the story and figure things out or, as Shannon Hale put it, shoveling sand into a box to build sandcastles with later, I'm often fixating on the smallest details. And while they're important, they don't necessarily matter as much in a first draft, You can always go back and rework it all in editing.
I struggle with giving myself permission to play as a writer and be imperfect while doing so—which brings me to the term "Proof of Concept."
Generally speaking, it's used to describe a demonstration of a product or idea to prove that it's feasible. In many cases, this is a small-scale version of what is planned in order to show potential. A prototype to show what is possible.
And that's sort of like the first draft of a novel. It's a prototype in its own sense, showing what is possible and that the idea has merit, even if the story requires some refinement.
Although I haven't heard anyone else use the phrase Proof of Concept Draft, it does share some qualities with what some writers call a "Zero Draft." These are usually significantly shorter than a novel, as they're comprised of just the bare bones to see how the pieces of the idea come together (or don't). In my case, these tend to be very dialogue-heavy and lacking scene description, too.
Like a proof of concept in manufacturing, it's a chance to test out the concept of your story and get a feel of how well it could work.
All in all, I've found that calling my first—and even second or third—drafts a Proof of Concept has made the whole process less intimidating. In a phase where perfection need not be expected, it helps to have a little reminder that all a first draft needs to do is show that a story idea can work, even if it needs a little more development first.
