I know there are quite a few authors who never let anyone else see their first drafts. I'm not one of them - I fearlessly unleash my work in progress on readers to try to find out what bits work, and what bits don't work.
It's true that the first draft of a novel is very much like vomiting words onto the page. It's that brave attempt to get the story that's trapped inside your head, out on to the page. With it, you get spelling errors, typing mistakes, grammar that is not of this planet, plot holes, and all sorts of weird things as the story trying to settle itself out.
My first drafts are no different. I find that in some chapters, my characters seem to take on entirely new personalities, ignoring the fight that they had not two pages earlier, and being overly chummy with the person they were about to try to kill. But it's these experiments with character personalities that make my first drafts to interesting. At some point, usually the second or third draft, I'll have to settle on exactly how my character should be, but in the meantime, I've got a chance to try a few things out.
So, last week, I gave a couple of scenes a public airing at a writers' meeting. In the two scenes I selected, I had made the same character show every different personalities and emotions, with different dialogue styles. In the first scene, I made my character arrogant and cock-sure. In the second scene he was contrite and humble. The feedback I received was interesting. From what was said, it seems that I could probably go either way with my character's development. This is actually a bit of a pain, because I can't make up my mind. However, everyone seemed to enjoy the scenes I created, so maybe my character's behaviour suited those scenes. Maybe it would be okay to have my character show both characteristics?
I'm still not convinced I'll ever publish the story in question. I've learned a few things by writing it, so I guess it was a useful exercise. Sharing my first draft hasn't been a painful experience, although in this instance, it didn't help me either. So I ask myself, if my open approach correct?
