How we write.

I've been thinking about this a lot, actually.

The majority of my time is spent not actually typing, but turning stuff over in my head and trying to find the right angle.

Angle isn't a technical term. Just my own word for that process. I think of "angle" as being similar to a film take, in that a scene can change tone or even meaning depending on how it's shot, and many other tweaks.

Not a real example but say I have a scene where I intend a guy to propose to his gf. There are so many ways that scene could be done, from funny to heartfelt to boring to tragic and more. The angle I'd be searching for is one which fits the story, and stands out as interesting. I know the events, and those are straightforward, but the specific order in which things are done, lines are delivered, how the surroundings and mood and aftermath are described; all those other elements make up the angle.

Angle is awkward and hard to pin down, because no angle is inherently wrong. Anything can theoretically work. To use the example above, you can certainly have a funny proposal, or a tense one, or a flat one. But some fit a specific story better than others, and some appeal to me to write, more than others. Angle is often the difference between cheesy, and believable, but that difference is defined by context.

When I do the actual writing bit, I usually end up spending a long time re-writing and revising, tweaking and changing and shifting sentences and playing with word choice. The broader events typically say the same but the specifics will make or break the writing.

Angle is also a thing that scales up. Each individual scene has an angle, but so does the overall chapter, and the overall act, and the overall book. All the angles have to line up, and if they jar or rub wrong, then things stand out in the book. The story needs a structure that builds on and around each other so shifting one angle for a particular scene or chapter usually necessitates shifting all the others.

I suppose, in the end, this is why I am perpetually dissatisfied with outlining; it doesn't, for me, give an angle. Just allows me to make a list of events, but those are fairly simple and don't usually require me to write them down. I have never found a better way to work out angle other than giving it a lot of thought, and eventually writing out a version--usually, several. There are rare occasions where I nail it first time for a scene, but usually not. I mean, I do think I am (slowly) getting better with time and practice, but I'm also trying more difficult or subtle "takes" so the bar to jump over keeps edging higher.

Interesting topic.

I am a slow writer, because I spend a lot more time thinking than writing. Before my fingers touch the keyboard, the MC's voice and that first scene have to be clear in my head. After that, I'm even slower, often needing breaks before I can "see" the next scene/direction to continue writing. I'm also an edit-as-I go person. I can't move forward if I'm unhappy with what came before.

I keep a composition notebook (remember, the old marbled elementary school books?) for each mss, where I jot down character sketches, ideas/themes I might want to pursue, and then once I'm writing, notes on key details for each chapter to try to avoid dropping plot threads, remembering names, who is how old, etc.

This is an interesting topic.

If you leave out all the procrastination on internet forums* and walks in the woods kicking autumn leaves and deciding at a macro-level where the story is going, what so-and-so's ulterior motive is, how the sub-plot cliff-hanger can be resolved without disappointing either myself or a future reader....

The bare mechanics of it frequently involve sitting on a sofa** with my feet on the coffee table, a lap-top on the arm of said sofa, and a cat half on my lap (yeah, I have read about posture but my cat hasn't...). I then tend to write fairly fluidly but I revise often. I know a lot of people bash out a first draft "warts and all" but I tend to read the paragraph I have just written, correct SpAg if I see it, and just generally try to make the whole thing flow well at a sentence level. I will invariably start a session by reading the current chapter (and, again, revising things which don't seem quite right).

This makes my progress fairly pedestrian, but I enjoy it and believe (hope) that editing and revision should be quicker so it all evens out.


* I consider reading about the craft or joining in on AW is part of the writing process (c:
**I do have a desk and a room where I can work, but the sofa is nearer to the kettle... I live on my own now so peace and quiet is only an issue when the cat thinks it's time for a little something...

I write slowly. I put words down, delete them, rearrange them, change them, add to them. I'm often editing the beginning of a sentence before I've written the end of it. It's helpful to have a seed to start with--a word, a phrase, an image, a sound, an emotion. It can be anything but it must be fertile, able to sprout more words, images, etc.

Author Diana Gabaldon writes in a very similar fashion, and someone put together a quick video (two minutes) where she narrates what the process is like.This is the "parlor trick" version of a longer explanation I've heard elsewhere, but it captures the core of it. People might find it interesting, whether they write that way or not. I only post it because it so closely resembles my own approach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbJ1Hn55nOw

When you teach writing (or rhetoric) you talk about the stages of writing; one of them is Prewriting, which in terms of Classical rhetoric is the stage of Invention.

This is all the stuff you do before you set down to write connected paragraphs and pages of a draft. It can be day dreaming, random notes and sketches, research, outlining (or other heuristic techniques as you try to figure out what you're writing, and why).

BethS said:

Author Diana Gabaldon writes in a very similar fashion, and someone put together a quick video (two minutes) where she narrates what the process is like.This is the "parlor trick" version of a longer explanation I've heard elsewhere, but it captures the core of it. People might find it interesting, whether they write that way or not. I only post it because it so closely resembles my own approach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbJ1Hn55nOw

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Her books aren't my thing but I loved this vid, thank you! I do something similar, with lots of getting up to pace, stand on the terrace, or make a cup of tea in between, and think of that better word.

I go to bed like 8PM and wake up at 12AM and that's when I think my story through. I lay in bed and go over the scenes and events in my head. If it's a particularly exciting part, I write genre fiction, it keeps me awake. Once I think up enough material, I go back to sleep, and write it out in the morning.

I'm new to novel writing but have been doing a web comic for a number of years. Unfortunately, you don't need a lot of material to do a daily web comic but you do need a lot of material for a novel so now I think for longer periods of time. It's taking some getting use to.

My day jobs tend to be in manufacturing, in areas that require physical precision and mental acuity. But sometimes I have lulls when my attention can safely wander for a few minutes at a time. Those moments are when I 'pre-write' scenes and setting notes. When I actually sit down to write, I'm primed.

I also tend to re-read my last couple of chapters and my outline notes, just to 'reset' myself before charging back in.

I get ideas mostly in the public transport or waiting in the stations. I write usually at the PC, at home, or on my laptop, when away. When I was working, I was handwriting sometimes various scenes, during the boring meetings.

I have to have a framework of events or at least possible events to start with; otherwise I end up lost between all the possibilities of what could happen and all the possibilities of how to tell it. Then once I have some idea of what it is I'm talking about, I have to find a starting point -- a feeling, an image, a perspective; some idea of what kind of voice is telling this. Then it's a constant process of sorting out possibilities. Out of all the myriad potential details in this scene, which ones would this person notice; which ones build the overall picture I want and progress the story towards where I want it to go. I have a tendency to veer into pretty static images or pretty strings of words that don't actually hold up on closer examination, so it's a balance between heading those off and finding the fluid, vivid language that actually does mean what I want it to mean. I'm still getting reconciled to just how much going back over previously written sections all this involves, and how much "go away and come back to figure this out" seems to be part of the process -- the "come back" part always seems to be the hardest.

I sometimes am asked to give presentations on writing, and I usually describe it as a form of telepathy in that the writer is trying to take images from his or her head and put them into someone else's. Someone far away that they will never meet. So when I'm writing, I have that in mind: Okay, what am I (or my characters) seeing and feeling and sensing? How do I use words to transmit that accurately so that the reader sees and feels and senses all that too?

Fortz said:

I go to bed like 8PM and wake up at 12AM and that's when I think my story through. I lay in bed and go over the scenes and events in my head. If it's a particularly exciting part, I write genre fiction, it keeps me awake. Once I think up enough material, I go back to sleep, and write it out in the morning.

I'm new to novel writing but have been doing a web comic for a number of years. Unfortunately, you don't need a lot of material to do a daily web comic but you do need a lot of material for a novel so now I think for longer periods of time. It's taking some getting use to.

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I'm very much the same way. Usually in the middle of the night ideas come into my head and I jot them down in Evernote before I lose them (I tend to lose a lot of sleep). Before I write I almost always have a few key plot points I want to make and then I just write and let the story and dialogue flow as naturally as I can. I'm a pretty quick writer and so I can type up a chapter (3,000-6,000 words) in a couple of hours. Once I'm completely finished with the chapter or section, I take a break before I go back and re-read it. Most of the time I realize how much work needs to be done (always better descriptions), but every once in a while I'm happy with most of it.

My day-job is writing / editing non-fiction, so I tend to be writing daily for several hours at a time (with breaks of course).

In terms of fiction-writing, personally, I find it easy to slip into the writing mode, whether or not I'm physically writing. My first drafts are almost all handwritten. This particular process is cathartic for me, and helps me with ideas and phrasing, description, and delving into the current POV's mindset.

Couldn't tell you my daily wordcount, though -- I don't write using that metric; I find it induces writer's block. Instead, I go by how pleased I am with the progress made. And that, obviously, is subjective.

I work through novels in my head before I set anything down, usually multiple times. That way I avoid major dead ends and plot fails at the keyboard, and know I have a satisfying ending before I start. Much of the work is done in bed before I fall asleep, also during dull tasks like driving, running, or gardening. I'll rerun scenes again mentally in the days before I get to them so they're fresh, and if there are things I'm afraid I'll forget I might jot down some notes.

Short story process varies. Sometimes I pre-write them in my head and others I grab an idea and wing it at the keyboard.

My current Nano project, I just knew I wanted to do a novel for NanoWriMo, and I hadn't thought about anything beforehand, not about the characters, not about the plot, nothing. There was one simple thing on my mind on that fateful Oct. 28, 2018 when I decided to write my first Nano novel--write 50,000 words by Nov. 30, 2018. That was it. Then the story came alive when I sat down and started writing it. I created characters and they had troubles to face and personalities and everything, but that's not always how it happens. In fact, this is the first novel I've ever written without having any idea what it was going to be about or how the characters were going to be. I usually think about the plot of my new novel, and then I write it down on a LibreOffice Writer document so I don't forget it. After that, I sit down and write the novel. It usually takes me one month to finish the first draft, depending on how many words I write each day. On Nov. 19, I wrote 10,000 words in one day.

Marlys said:

I work through novels in my head before I set anything down, usually multiple times. That way I avoid major dead ends and plot fails at the keyboard, and know I have a satisfying ending before I start. Much of the work is done in bed before I fall asleep, also during dull tasks like driving, running, or gardening. I'll rerun scenes again mentally in the days before I get to them so they're fresh, and if there are things I'm afraid I'll forget I might jot down some notes.

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I'm very similar. I wait until I have run through the movie version in my head lots of times and I'm happy with the beginning, major plot points and end before I start writing.

I work full time in a demanding non-writing job, so I'm happy if I get a three to four hour writing session each weekend. Sometimes I'll get two, other times I might go weeks without writing. I don't sweat it, though, and the works gets done.

Mostly I've just started writing, except for one story which I knew but had to find the drama, and the dramatic structure. BUT, I think I need a new approach. I think I need to have more going in. And I think I have to focus less on the emotional effect and more of what might provoke intellectually. Big challenge for me, because as Woody Allen said, more or less, nothing worth knowing is known through the mind. I mostly believe that and I'm mostly interested in art that moves me, much more than I am in art that makes me think--except for in service to how it makes me feel. Could be I have it all wrong, of course. Ha, in fact it's likely. This is what happens when things don't go as you wish. You start doubting everything about your approach. It makes sense to do so, you think, because yes, even though it is a difficult undertaking, it can be done, right? So it must be you. Well, not you, but me. God, I need a rabbi (not Jewish, so only in the colloquial sense.)

Michael Myers said:

Hello. My name is Michael Myers and I am a . . . bit perplexed. With Ari’s indulgence, I thought to open a discussion about how we write. Not a crit circle, but rather a discussion about how a story’s words get from brain to paper. How we each individually approach the process. Perhaps there’s something worth learning there. Or not.

By way of example, here’s a string of words that my keyboard captured. My eyes were closed while I allowed myself to enter into the scene, chasing tendrils. Pausing, observing fast-moving mental images, recording, but never stopping to read back and edit. Misspellings and all:

=============
drew his gun loaded a bullet toe to the door should he need a swift opening silencer dorr jamb for a steady rest two men nearby scriffy and hungry but just shuffled on she sat in front and they to the rear sharing a brown paper bag the contents of and whiping heri lips with a dirty sleep

Then in his plain compact sedan, driving away into the the fog of the night.
==============

The last line came after I’d captured the blob, a coda with the spin needed to fit a larger subtext.

Thoughts, anyone? Crickets?

Again note that is NOT A CRIT CIRCLE kind of thing. I have been assured that Ari will see to that.

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When you wrote this, was it like you were...translating mental images as quick as you could into something roughly verbal? I get the sense, from you saying you "entered the scene", that the scene is something in your head with pictures and motion -- and the stream of consciousness indicates it moves quickly? Is that right?

It seems so different from how I would construct something Like...I don't know, it's hard to describe, but the writing of something is in itself the way of imagining the scene or story -- in words first, then pictures if I can manage it, or with the two simultaneously building on each other, but always the verbal thing is foremost. Sometimes there isn't a clear picture of everything, anyway -- people are imagined, often, as faceless shapes. (If I recall correctly. Truth be told, it's been a while since I've written anything...)

For example, if I were to close my eyes and type, without going back to fix anything or edit...this is a story I've been trying to outline, without a huge amount of success... But let's say I make some snap decisions right now for the sake of exercise

...

It was an insufferably bright afternoon, the market in full noxiousness; the charlatans on their platforms screeching and tossing remedies out as fast as the hollrs and coins were hurled towards them. Durvy's platform was two inches higher than everyone else's -- she'd made sure of it with a ruler, and overnight now and then she'd hammer more bits of wood or stone or sometimes dead birds to the top of it to stay that way. "Durvy's famous fecal translplants" would always be the biggest and brightest sign in that shithole of a district, no pun intended, even if she had to sell steal the nails.

...

At this point, I'm thinking, yeah, this isn't really right -- in terms of wording, in terms of voice, and also in terms of where to start, probably, and also what the hell kind of name is Durvy...

But wow my spelling is about as good as it is when my eyes are open?

Anyway. The point is, though, that I'm not working so much from a visualization, if that makes sense -- I'm trying to build a scene made of words, for myself, after which might come the images... is it the other way around for you?

(If I had the freedom, that little writing sample there wouldn't have gotten that far Much more doing would have gone into word choice and sentence construction -- because, I guess, the "building" of the thing depends so much on the words, and I immediately wanted to start revising as soon as I typed the first phrase.)

Re: what others have said about constructing the story itself -- sitting down and thinking for a long time, etc -- I try to do this, too. I find, though -- and this is probably why I am also bad at Rubik's cubes, programming games, chess, and complex puzzles -- my brain is only willing to extend "step a leads to step b which leads to step c and d which leads to step e, f, h, i, and eventually g" so far before it just ... can't follow its own thought anymore? I find that I'm often outlining only the first part of something before I get stuck, write, then get to the end of that part, get stuck again, outline the next bit and then realize I also need to change the first part I just wrote, redo the outline, rewrite the first part, and so on forever.

It's...quite annoying.

I've heard the movie comparison before, from a fair few people in writing groups (the concept of writing down pictures they see in their head).

I always assumed, perhaps wrongly on reflection, that it mostly applied to writers whose end goal was a film, and so thought in cinematic sequences. Perhaps they're just very visual, I don't know.

buz said:

I'm trying to build a scene made of words, for myself, after which might come the images...

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I think I get what you mean because I do this myself, or something similar. I always have the mental images, but I can't always find the right words to translate them to the page. The words are everything, so in any scene, the first sentence I put down (even if I don't end up keeping it) is crucial, because those words are the seed. As I add more to them, they form visuals, and the visuals inspire more words, which continue to fill in the picture. It's an edifice of words, growing on the page and in my head. Some writers say, "I just write down the movie in my head," but in my case, the movie is projected into my brain by the words. And come to think, this is the way we read, or the way I read. Out of the words come the images. I've always said I write the way I read--to find out what happens next--but I never thought about the act of writing as a literal construction of the story, word by word, just so I can read it.

(Also, just as an aside, I was quite taken by that little sample you posted. In just a few words you painted a vivid, unusual setting and introduced an engaging character. )

Michael Myers said:

buz, this is the sort of response I had hoped for.

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Oh wow, I did something right! Neato.

Yes, exactly that. However, the scene moves (will move) in a measured tempo. But the pace at which I captured it did indeed move quickly. The various little bits of the vignette were happening all at once, out of sequence. I knew how I wanted things to feel at the end; what sort of resonance I wanted left ringing in the reader.

Very much so these days. To me, there exists a how-to-write channel and what-to-write channel. These two come together to form a gap with respect to the keyboard. A strong potential forms, a spark is created, and only then do the true words spill out. Not the inverse.

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Interesting It sounds like you have a strong sort of ...feeling + imagery thrust at the beginning.

I rather wish I did; things are so much more muddley...

“Free your mind and the rest will follow.”

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Man, my mind is getting less and less free...if I opened the cage door it'd probably just slam it shut on itself again.

Harlequin said:

I've heard the movie comparison before, from a fair few people in writing groups (the concept of writing down pictures they see in their head).

I always assumed, perhaps wrongly on reflection, that it mostly applied to writers whose end goal was a film, and so thought in cinematic sequences. Perhaps they're just very visual, I don't know.

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There was...at some point, somewhere on this site...a discussion about this. About people who read/write visually, vs people who don't picture much of anything, and people in between...uh...I don't remember where it was or...much of anything else. So, that's a helpful little insertion from me, eh? * fart noise * But I remember thinking, at the time...a lot of people use visual imagery way more than I do

BethS said:

I think I get what you mean because I do this myself, or something similar. I always have the mental images, but I can't always find the right words to translate them to the page. The words are everything, so in any scene, the first sentence I put down (even if I don't end up keeping it) is crucial, because those words are the seed. As I add more to them, they form visuals, and the visuals inspire more words, which continue to fill in the picture. It's an edifice of words, growing on the page and in my head. Some writers say, "I just write down the movie in my head," but in my case, the movie is projected into my brain by the words. And come to think, this is the way we read, or the way I read. Out of the words come the images. I've always said I write the way I read--to find out what happens next--but I never thought about the act of writing as a literal construction of the story, word by word, just so I can read it.

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Yeah, kinda this. Although I don't always get a movie, more...I dunno. I can imagine certain scenes visually after I write them down, very occasionally before, but not always very clearly, and often it's just scenes with the joining-bits not having a visual component...

Like I said, above, muddley. Hard to pin it down; it always feels like a mess...

(Also, just as an aside, I was quite taken by that little sample you posted. In just a few words you painted a vivid, unusual setting and introduced an engaging character. )

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Aw thanks. Maybe someday I'll actually write it...

Harlequin said:

I've heard the movie comparison before, from a fair few people in writing groups (the concept of writing down pictures they see in their head).

I always assumed, perhaps wrongly on reflection, that it mostly applied to writers whose end goal was a film, and so thought in cinematic sequences. Perhaps they're just very visual, I don't know.

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I absolutely see everything I read and write as a movie playing out in my head (and I don't want to write one). My son told me when he reads he sees...words. Words filling a whiteboard, or passing by like on a stock market ticker. I thought everyone read/wrote the way I do (because it never occurred to me there was another way). I was mind-boggled when he told me how it works for him, and he can not understand my visual experience. Human brains. Weird stuff.

Hrm. I wonder if that's why I struggle with description. I rarely think of picture scenes (so have nothing to describe?)

@Elaine, I would say I am more like your son. I see words, mostly.