By Leann Barna

One of the biggest mistakes new screenwriters (or any writers) make is believing the first draft has to be good. Most first drafts are overwritten, underwritten, confusing, and sometimes embarrassing. That is completely normal. The first draft is not where you prove your writing skills. The first draft leads to story discovery. Even if you are a “planner” and not a “pantser,” there is discovery about your characters, plot, theme, and much more during the writing process.

Many writers stop halfway through writing a screenplay because the story isn’t working perfectly, and they feel the need to fix it or start over. Those feelings are part of the process. The hardest part of writing is endurance.

A screenplay consists of structure, pacing, character arcs, visual storytelling, dialogue, theme, and conflict, all weaving together. Also, screenwriters must consider the number of locations, budget constraints, financing challenges, and distribution options. While these are important to think about from the beginning, it is impossible to fully understand what a story needs until the end.

But when you finish a first draft, you have something many aspiring writers never achieve: a complete screenplay. You can rewrite the dialogue to sound more believable and give the midpoint reversal an unexpected twist. You can strengthen the antagonist and balance pacing. But you cannot rewrite a blank sheet of paper.

One of the best habits to develop as a writer is separating drafting from editing. Drafting is the forward movement of the story. Editing is the refinement of the completed story. If you stop every few pages to rewrite dialogue or obsess over formatting, momentum is lost, which makes the first draft much more difficult to finish.

Some days, writing will be exciting. Other days, it will be torture. Write anyway. Discipline pushes you further than inspiration and motivation. The writers I mentor are probably sick of hearing me tell them I do not care what their first draft looks like, just finish. Personally, I make notes as I write, but I do not go back to edit until I have a completed first draft. Other writers I know will only let themselves edit what they wrote the day before, and then they move on.

Also, stop comparing your rough draft to produced films. You are comparing your unfinished draft to a final product that went through years of rewrites, development notes, actors, directors, editors, composers, and studio input. Of course, your first draft feels smaller, but every screenplay starts there. Screenwriting is a skill learned through repetition. Your first screenplay teaches you how to write the next one, and so on. A career happens through completion, not continual preparation.

All of this is true not just for screenwriting but for novels, nonfiction books, articles, children’s books, and every creative endeavor. So, write the awkward scenes. Write the predictable endings. Write the scenes that scare you because it feels amazing to write the words “FADE OUT” at the end of a first draft.

Leann Barna is a screenwriter, filmmaker, and media scholar with extensive experience in both the entertainment industry and education. She is the founder and lead writer of Mining Company Media. Her professional background includes creative development roles at Disney Channel, NBCUniversal, MarVista Entertainment, PureFlix, and Pinnacle Peak Pictures. Leann holds a master’s degree in Cinema and Television with a concentration in Screenwriting and a master’s degree in biblical studies from Regent University.

Leann will teach a four-hour coaching class “Secrets of Scriptwriting: From Page to Screen” at the 2026 CCW Summer Conference June 14–17, being held at the Canby Grove Christian Conference Center in Canby, Oregon. For more information and to register, visit our conference page. Registration closes May 31.