You know that character you're writing right now? The one who feels like a cardboard cutout with a name tag? Yeah, I'm giving you permission to keep them that way—at least for now.

I can already hear the protests. "But won't that create bad habits?" "Shouldn't I fix problems as I go?" "Don't I need to know my characters inside-out before I start writing?"

Here's the truth that might save your manuscript: your first draft characters are supposed to be terrible. In fact, embracing their awfulness is exactly what will help you discover who they really are.

The Permission You've Been Waiting For

Anne Lamott famously coined the term "shitty first draft" in her book Bird by Bird, giving writers everywhere permission to write badly. But most advice about first drafts focuses on plot, structure, or prose. What we rarely discuss is how this permission extends to creating characters who are, initially, completely two-dimensional, inconsistent, or downright boring.

The shitty first draft isn't just about messy sentences—it's about discovering your story through the act of writing it. And characters? They're the hardest part to "discover" because they don't exist yet. You can research medieval villages or plot twists, but you can't Google your protagonist's secret fear of disappointing their mother.

That comes from writing them badly first.

Why Character Perfection Paralyzes You

When you try to create a fully-formed, three-dimensional character before writing your first draft, something insidious happens: you freeze. You spend weeks filling out character questionnaires, determining their favorite foods and childhood traumas, building elaborate backstories about their third-grade teacher.

Then you sit down to write and... they still feel flat on the page.

Here's why: character depth doesn't come from pre-planning—it comes from action and reaction in specific situations. You don't truly know how someone behaves under pressure until you put them under pressure. Your character's defining moment won't emerge from a worksheet; it'll emerge when you write the scene where everything goes wrong and they have to choose.

The problem with trying to perfect characters before drafting is that you're essentially trying to know someone you haven't met yet. It's like planning detailed conversations with your future spouse before you've gone on a single date.

What a Shitty First Draft Character Actually Looks Like

Let me be specific about what I mean. In your first draft, your character might:

- React differently to the same situation in Chapter 3 versus Chapter 15 (and not because they've grown—just because you're still figuring them out)
- Have a voice that sounds identical to every other character
- Make decisions purely because the plot needs them to, not because it's what they'd actually do
- Lack any distinguishing mannerisms, speech patterns, or physical presence
- State their feelings directly instead of showing them through behavior
- Contradict their own values without you realizing it

And guess what? That's perfectly fine.

These aren't failures—they're breadcrumbs showing you who this person is becoming.

How to Actually Use This Permission

Giving yourself permission to write flat characters isn't about lowering your standards. It's about changing when you apply those standards. Here's how to make this approach work:

Start with the bare minimum. Give your character a name, a basic goal, and maybe one trait. That's it. Don't spend three weeks creating their astrological chart. Write a scene. See what happens.

Write in discovery mode, not judgment mode. As you draft, notice when your character surprises you. When they say something you didn't expect, or make a choice that feels right even though you hadn't planned it. These moments are gold—they're your subconscious figuring out who this person really is.

Keep a character evolution journal. In a separate document, jot quick notes as you discover things: "Oh, Marcus is actually conflict-avoidant, not just quiet" or "Emma keeps making jokes when she's uncomfortable—that's her defense mechanism." Don't stop your draft to fix earlier scenes. Just note it and keep writing forward.

Let contradictions accumulate. When your character does something inconsistent with an earlier scene, don't panic and stop to fix it. Mark it somehow (I use brackets: [CHARACTER CHECK]) and keep going. Often, these contradictions reveal internal conflicts or complexity you hadn't consciously planned.

Give yourself permission to not like them yet. Your protagonist might be boring as hell in Chapter 1. That's because you're getting to know them. By Chapter 20, you might finally understand why they do what they do. That's when you go back and rewrite Chapter 1 with that knowledge.

The Magic That Happens When You Let Go

Here's what I've discovered through writing this way: the characters you discover through drafting are almost always more interesting than the ones you meticulously plan.

Why? Because planned characters come from your conscious mind—the part that thinks it knows what makes people interesting. But discovered characters come from your intuition, from the part of you that understands human complexity without having to articulate it first.

When you write forward without stopping to perfect each character moment, you tap into patterns of behavior that feel authentic because they emerge organically. Your character's habit of interrupting people might start as a random tic, but by Act Three, you realize it stems from a childhood where they were never heard. You didn't plan that—you discovered it.

Your Character Archaeology Project

Think of your first draft as an archaeological dig. You're not building a character from scratch—you're excavating one that already exists somewhere in your creative unconscious. The shitty first draft is your chance to dig freely, making a mess, not worrying about preserving everything perfectly.

The restoration work comes later.

So write that flat character. Write them boring, inconsistent, and unmemorable. Write them doing things that don't quite make sense yet. Write dialogue that sounds like everyone else's dialogue. Write reactions that feel generic.

Then finish your draft. All the way to the end.

Because here's the secret: you can't fix a character who doesn't exist yet. But once you've written their entire journey—however messily—you finally know who they are. And that's when the real character work begins.

Your shitty first draft isn't where your characters are born. It's where they're discovered. So stop trying to create perfect people and start giving yourself permission to meet the messy, complicated, contradictory characters who are waiting for you to find them.

Now stop reading this and go write someone terrible.