My Writing Process

InkFinger

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I was asked by someone I'm working with about my process. The response is worth repeating, I hope. So I'll share it with you. If it helps, awesome. If not, there are lots of processes, choose another one.

What do I do?

No one actually knows where their characters are going until they’ve met them, so no, I don’t know where my stories will go until I write them. I do outline after a manner though, big ideas and general objectives a la, “I’ll write a werewolf story with a tragic ending that explores process of changing,” or “This is boy meets girl, falls in love with sister, gets dumped, and ends up alone.” It may even be as simple as my protagonist gets a cup of coffee and daydreams about the barista. The longer the work, the more detailed that becomes, and fair warning, I almost never stick to the outline. It’s more like a suggestion.

Once I’ve written a first draft and look at what I’ve done and try to understand why anyone, why I, would care. And then I go back and line up my plot, each characters NOCR (Needs/Wants, Obstacles, Climax, Resolution), and at a minimum the protagonist's character arch. Then I go back and retell the story, making sure to deliver of those three things, throwing away anything that doesn’t and adding anything that’s needed to make it work.

You should have trusted readers – someone to build you up, someone to tear you down, and someone to tell you the truth. I use people from this writing group. There are some really exceptional writers on the forum.

Take their feedback. Understand that they will tell you what works and what doesn’t. Listen to them. They will also tell you how to fix it. More often not, they don’t know shit, because they don’t know your characters. You have to fix it, but you can keep in mind what they say. That goes for me too. I’m just some joker you met online by asking for a beta.

Basic pattern in, in full, though I rarely do the whole thing.

1. Get your story out, however, you do that. Tell it until it’s finished.
2. Do something else for a little bit. Giving critiques to others is good, so is mowing the lawn or catching up on work. Or writing another story.
3. Reread your story. Try to understand why it matters at all.
4. Write down your plot.
5. Write down your character(s) NOCR. Everyone that changes the plot has a NOCR. You especially need to love you antagonist as much as your protagonist or they will ring hollow. This means you must sympathize with your Antagonists reason(ing) for being the baddie. Bad guys think they are good guys. We are all the heroes of our own stories.
6. Write down your character arch.
7. Write a second draft. Nothing but practice goes out on first draft. If you haven’t written a second draft you haven’t finished your story.
8. Read it again, draft it again if necessary.
9. Get another round of feedback from a truth teller.
10. Clean up your most current draft with fixes and touches.
11. Edit for grammar and spelling. This is a pain in the ass, and everyone needs it. No one is perfect.
12. Line edits – this means read every sentence stand alone, then with the sentence before and after. Decide if it’s the best sentence it can be, fix it if it isn’t. This is a giant pain in the ass, but the difference is insane.
13. Send it to an editor or submit it for consideration.
14. You should be able to describe your story in a paragraph no matter how long it is, and that comes from 4, 5, and 6 above.

The most important thing is to write, and write a lot. We all play like we practice. You will only find your masterpiece if you write it.

Last, why do I give feedback and detailed critiques? It improves my writing to think about yours and tell you what I think. You should do it for others too. Everyone has a voice no matter how advanced or how new. Part of practicing your craft is giving criticism.
 
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InkFinger

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For those asking 9 and 12 are the steps that get missed by me on occasion.
 

Maryn

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For what it's worth, that's nothing like my process, and more power to us both, huh? The bottom line is that whatever works for each writer needs to be honed to make their process efficient for them while also producing quality work.

In critique, I have a certain skill set and see details appropriate for line edits while missing some pretty major flaws. Inkfinger's clearly a Big Picture thinker addressing structural issues, but I'll catch you spelling that foreign word two ways, both considered correct.

So the more people you can get to give you feedback once you've made your manuscript as good as it can be, the better.

Maryn, who admits to no patience for certain kinds of mistakes
 

InkFinger

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To be honest, I am a process guy, so I'd love to see everyone's process. Anyone that cares to share, please post it. You will help someone, and maybe get some help.
 

Maryn

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I'll attempt to figure out what my process is, and post when I do. Later: Okay, this is about as close as I can get to how I write novels.

The Scene
My process, such as it is, starts with an imagined scene. Usually it’s either a crisis peaking, or a resolution. It’s not necessarily sexual, although it can be.

Some Characters
There are two characters in it, maybe three, and I create lives for them, defining who they are, not necessarily what’s happening but making them the kinds of people who might be in this situation. It’s a crutch, but I usually envision public figures (actors, singers, athletes—no politicians!) as each character at this stage.

A Point of View Character
During the creation of characters’ basic personalities, I take a liking to one and want him or her to be the POV character so I can get more deeply inside their head. I swear I’ve usually fallen hard for them by the time a book is complete.

Plotting
So now I’ve got my basic people who can plausibly be in this situation, so I start figuring out how to get them there. This is my biggest weakness. I often start with, but don’t stick with, a spreadsheet with major plot points and turning points as the rows, and the columns what each character’s doing or thinking and anything else I want to keep track of, like date and time, weather, setting, subplots, who knows the big secret, where the money’s hidden, like that. Thinking it through in enough detail takes some time. I turn it over in my mind any time I’m idle, usually for a few weeks at least.

First Draft
When the spreadsheet’s pretty much filled in, I can start a first draft. Luckily, in the course of writing I discover who my POV person really is at their core, plus I get better ideas on, well, everything. There was a time when I’d create a fresh version of the spreadsheet incorporating new ideas, but lately I’ve just turned my back on it and written myself comments in the document, especially things to go back and change or to check. During the first draft, the characters become real and stop being those celebrities. I often change their appearance here, rendering them unrecognizeable.

The End, and The Wait
When my first draft is done, I set it aside and don’t let myself open the document for some time. Since I don’t have a deadline, it’s usually at least two months. During that time I might rewrite or edit something else, or start a new project that’s not related to the one that’s “resting.” I also write myself notes, things to confirm, ideas to consider, things that need deleting.

The Second Draft
After a good long while, when I read the first draft it’s like someone else wrote it. This is perfect, and the draft is far from it. I make a copy of it, name it Second Draft, and revise and edit at the same time, adding material and making changes based on my notes. When I delete anything big (or occasionally something really good that just doesn’t work), I keep it in a folder named Deletions. My first draft is unsullied, in case something was better the way I did it the first time.

Rinse and Repeat
I repeat the wait/write/edit/revise cycle as many times as it takes until I see that what I’m doing is changing but not improving the manuscript. I rename the document Final Version and try to leave it the hell alone.

Languish
And here is where we devolve into multiple novels and novellas that live on my hard drive, most never beta read by anyone who gets back to me, no pro-level edits, no cover art identified or created, no conversion to however the hell you make it work as an ebook.

Maryn, honest even when it's semi-embarrassing
 
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InkFinger

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This is great. You are much more organized than me to get started. I love it. Anyone else?
 

guppie1813

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As a wannabe, both of these descriptions are very helpful. My stories start like Maryn's. Some character starts talking to me, or I get an idea for a single scene (for me it usually IS sexy). Most of the time, once I start putting that down, things like back story, consequences of the first scene, supporting characters, etc will start to enter spontaneously. My problem is, I seem to go on and on and on with no goals in mind. In the past, I thought that was the 'wrong' way to do things so I would just stop. But Ink's process of getting down a first draft, THEN going back to line up the plot and clarify NOCR points works better for me. Over thinking things at the beginning just stunts my creativity, but I definitely need a spread sheet approach to bring everything together. The part that is hard about that approach is that I often get attached to a scene or some dialog that doesn't actually work for the story or the characters. That is when I find it helpful to have someone else who isn't in love with every word read for me and tell me what needs to go.

I like actually putting physical pen to physical paper. Maybe I will try notecards when I get to the organizing stage.
 

Liz_V

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My process is: Words appear in my head, and I write them down.

I don't outline. I'll often make some notes, mainly so that I don't forget key points while a story is percolating in the back-brain until it's ready to write, but never anything so organized as an outline. Usually the "notes" are at least partly the actual words I'll use in the text.

Because that's how I get story ideas: as words. I get the literal actual words I will use in the text first, not last. If I'm lucky (and I usually am), the words come with enough bits of ideas attached that I know what they're for, but even then, I get the development of the ideas as words, not as abstract ideas that I then need to figure out how to describe.

Characters, setting, pacing, structure, and all that stuff typically come along as inherent riders to the words.

At some point, I will get horribly stuck on What Happens Next, on a very granular, event/action-for-this-scene level, and bash my head against the wall for days (months... years....) until the right Thing sneaks in there. I am perpetually on a search for How To Do Plot Better, and whatever solution helpful, generous people offer is never the thing I'm looking for.

I do occassionally stop part-way through to outline a small section; chapter 7 is often prone to this. But once I'm through that bit, I'll charge ahead with Hey, here's some words. Here's some more words.

However, unlike the common assumption about pantsers, I also don't spew a ton of words and then cut most of them. The words I get are typically the words that stay; revisions, when I make them, tend to be minor. If they're large revisions, it's usually adding something that was in my head and didn't make it onto the page, not cutting or changing what's already there. (I've gotten much better about this with experience.)

Also, processes are weird, and each story has its own ideas about how it ought to be written. I once had to story-board the penultimate chapter of a novel, even though I am not a "visual" writer and even though I knew perfectly well what happened. But for some reason, the words wouldn't come until I'd sketched out the key scenes in stick-figure art. :e2shrug:
 

Maryn

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That's so cool, that it comes to you as words rather the brain movies.

Maryn, jealous
 

JS Emuakpor

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Uh, I've got no process. But if I had to commit to something, it would look like this.

1) Ruminate on the main character.
a) How does s/he look?
b) How does s/he talk?
c) Is s/he a complete asshole or an incomplete one? Because all of mine tend to be assholes to some degree.

2) Let the character fall into situations with other characters, whom I don't really know.

3) Write some of the scenes from other characters' POVs, just to get to know the other characters.

4) Tie all the situations together into a right proper story!

5) Put the finished manuscript down for at least a month. Then re-read/revise.

6) Put the revised manuscript down for at least a month. Then re-read/revise.

7) Send to beta reader(s) for their opinions.

8) Re-read/revise/update with beta-reader suggestions.

9) Put the updated manuscript down for at least a month. Then re-read/revise.

10) Print the novel. Read out loud and revise on paper.

11) Revise.

12) Send to copy-editor.

13) Revise.

14) Done

Hm... this looks pretty uninspiring.