Preparation Before Writing

[Black Dragon]

On average, how much time do you spend researching, outlining, etc. before you begin writing your novel?

I've been known to spend 3-6 months, although I love creating massive outlines.

Also, what sort of preparation do you engage in?

 

[Kaellpae]

I've been researching for my main world for about a month so far. I've outlined some characters and historical figures. This is my first time so I don't know how long it'll be till I get comfortable enough with my world to write something more than a short story. This will be nice to see what others say though.

 

[Argentum]

A day or two? If I get a new story idea, I usually have all the details down by the end of the day. Whatever needs to be research I usually do as I write. I have, however, spent a month recently devoted to doing research for one particular book. Most of that detail and research probably wasn't entirely necessary.

 

[Leuco]

I don't spend too long on the outline. As long as I have a beginning, middle, and end with some interesting conflicts, relationships, and drama, that's all I need to get started. If there's a problem, I just clean it up as I go. Same for research. If I need to describe something I know nearly nothing about, I make a trip to the local library.

Speaking of which, I found this very interesting resource about Biological Warfare in ancient times. It had some very neat stories about exploding pigs, trampling elephants, bug bombs-- as well as a very intriguing comparison of the Hydra to military technology. Or was it another mythic monster? I don't remember but it was all very interesting. If you like Joseph Campbell stuff, and obviously history, I think you'll find it worth reading.

Here's a link.
Amazon.com: Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World (9781585673483): Adrienne Mayor: Books

 

[Telcontar]

The only book I've completed to date had a fairly complete outline. I often departed from it, but it helped immensely. I always had a general sense of what had to happen 'next' in the story. I could expand sections, rewrite plot points, do whatever I wanted (it wasn't tightly plotted, by any means), but I always knew where to go.

I did this because many stories I'd started before had foundered. Even when I knew the ending, I might not know where the story was going next - and I would often write myself into dead ends. So I tried something new. It worked. I was making the outline for maybe a month before starting (actually re-starting) the book itself. I would often revisit and rework the outline after that.

I don't know if doing a general outline will become habit for me. My second book has no outline. However, if I get lost while writing it...

I do take notes on stories, but that is a constant thing, whenever I'm getting good ideas for a story. I write those down as they come, if they strike me as good enough, or detailed enough that I don't want to lose any of the bits. It isn't preparation.

 

[UnionJane]

One of the most useful things I have found is to have my nose in a book on writing fantasy while still in the "conception" stage of an idea. I look at it as the college lecture effect--having somebody more knowledgeable than myself talking to/educating me about something I love really helps me to maintain enthusiasm. Plus you never know when you may gain an idea for a plot twist from your reading! It's also a refresher just before writing for things to keep in mind, like syntax, dialogue, etc.

 

[Sevvie]

Um, my main story I've spent 7 years off and on, developing the story, background, characters, world, etc. ^^ Might be a bit overkill. I suppose it might be because I've only become satisfied with the development of the story within the past year or two, to seriously sit down and start working on it full time.

 

[Wings&Weird]

I take ages to come up with an idea, then longer to make the outline, setting and characters. When I have an idea, I usually write a short, un-detailed story around that one idea. I can spend forever preparing a story and then only write a short story.

 

[Theankh]

None, I just start writing

Then along the way as a need for information comes up, that's when I do any research!

 

[Shadoe]

Speaking of which, I found this very interesting resource about Biological Warfare in ancient times....

I read an article about greek fire a while back. I knew that someday I'd have to work that into Araith somewhere.

For research.... I've been at it for seven or eight years. I have one world I write in, with several different storylines, and I do research on specific aspects as I need something new.

I always outline. I write in mostly short stories, but usually in series. I'll have an overall storyline, which is sort of an umbrella of what I want to accomplish with the whole line, then I'll break that into a series of stories with each story set up to accomplish one step of the storyline. Then I come up with plots for each of the stories. I start with the concept and outcome I want, then I start fleshing it out with what has to be accomplished in each section, then I'll jot down ideas for each scene. Sometimes there are diagrams - I can get a little anal. Then there's just the writing. And the rewriting. And the reorganizing.

I've heard of a lot of writers who just sit down and start writing - and it actually works. I've tried that and end up tying myself in knots - and the dreaded dead ends.

 

[Angharad]

Well, I'm working on my first novel, and I started off by just sitting down and writing. I wrote a number of scenes that I like, but now it's come to the point where I need to figure out exactly where I'm going. I have 3 plot lines in 3 different time periods, and it's getting very complicated, so I'm going to have to do some sort of outlining.

 

[The Blue Lotus]

I researched the main theme of my novel(s) for 11 years.
There is a heavy religious undercurrent that I wanted to make sure I understood fully before I set out starting my work, as a result I now hold a degree in Theology (now known as Comparative Religion)
Now that I have started my work, I find I am still researching things to get all points just right...
I don't think one can ever know enough about any subject, thus I still find myself at book stores buying material for this reason.
But it is a lot of fun learning so I guess it's all good.

I too have massive outlines! glad to see I am not alone.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

Well, one I've been thinking about for over 20 years, but it's special, and I'm holding off on actually writing it till I'm sure i can do it justice. I have laid out all the major types of magic and what they do, and the side effects of them. The main general plot of the first book, but I'll probably spend another year or two working on the world and characters before I start writing it.

 

[Chilari]

My writing process looks like this:

1. Get an idea, of a feeling of mood or atmosphere, or even a static image. This the the spark. For the novel I'm currently working on, this was a trip to an iron age hill fort last October with a couple of professors and a coachload of first years (their field trip, but there was space on the coach for postgrad students too so I went), on a really foggy day. It took a lot longer to get there than it was meant to, and once there visibility was at about 15m, even on the top. It was eerie and cold and very quiet.

2. Start writing a scene based upon that spark. Generally, this scene is connected to nothing in particular, and the characters involved are made up on the fly. So with this story I had a character who is a young woman alone, with no possessions, who accidently stumbles upon a hill fort in the fog, realises where she is - a place of ghosts and magic, feared by all of her racial background - and runs down the slope. There she runs into a bald, scarred man. I've been watching a lot of Smallville recently, and I observed to my housemate that bald guys and scarred guys tend to always be bad guys, so I decided to make a bald, scarred guy who was a good guy.

3. After a certain point, I stop writing the scene. Sometimes this is where it ends. Other times, if I like the story, I start to flesh it out, build something up around it, a fuller plot. Why was this girl alone in the fog? Who is she running from? Why was this man out here in the fog in the shadow if this haunted hillfort? And how do they react to each other? What happens next? Also at this stage I think about what other elements I want to include in the story, in this case, vampires who really are bad guys and not suitable love interests, and with an origins story for these vampires which is part of the main story.

4. Background. I can only get so far with a plot before I have to stop and think about the context of the story. This is when I do the majority of my worldbuilding, and start changing what I already have to more closely match the rules of the world I am creating and create an overall theme or tone. In the story I'm working on at the moment, this is when i decided to change the vampires I was planning to include to something else. I realised I needed them to be different from traditional vampires, and I was already using the haunted hillfort as a magical channel enabling their creation, so I changed them from vampires to Ghostbound, humans bound by magic to ghosts, who are stronger during the night and particularly under a full moon, but who can be killed by iron or fire or healed of wounds by taking the life force of other living beings. I worked out the magic system (based upon magical hotspots and leylines, strengthened by the moon, weakened by iron and fire, and generally involving binding spells), the political landscape, the culture, history, geography and climate. This is the stage I am at now.

5. I go back and work through the plot, making sure it fits with what I am trying to accomplish in terms of how the plot is driven, what characteristics the characters have, etc.

6. I start writing, generally at a different point of the story to the first scene I wrote in step 2, with that scene appearing later in a modified form.

7. I hit a brick wall about three quarters of the way through, wonder why I'm doing this, decide to change something earlier in the story which then requires a lot of legwork to correct for continuity in the rest of the story, change back, skip ahead to a scene I've had in my head for a while and write that four times over with slight differences each time, look back at the bit I got stuck at and try to keep writing from there, give up, start again from scratch, question the value of the story, give up again, return to an old work I haven't touched in a while, write a few scenes on that, give up again and, finally, start at step one with a new idea.

 

[The Blue Lotus]

My writing process looks like this:

1. Get an idea, of a feeling of mood or atmosphere, or even a static image. This the the spark. For the novel I'm currently working on, this was a trip to an iron age hill fort last October with a couple of professors and a coachload of first years (their field trip, but there was space on the coach for postgrad students too so I went), on a really foggy day. It took a lot longer to get there than it was meant to, and once there visibility was at about 15m, even on the top. It was eerie and cold and very quiet.

2. Start writing a scene based upon that spark. Generally, this scene is connected to nothing in particular, and the characters involved are made up on the fly. So with this story I had a character who is a young woman alone, with no possessions, who accidently stumbles upon a hill fort in the fog, realises where she is - a place of ghosts and magic, feared by all of her racial background - and runs down the slope. There she runs into a bald, scarred man. I've been watching a lot of Smallville recently, and I observed to my housemate that bald guys and scarred guys tend to always be bad guys, so I decided to make a bald, scarred guy who was a good guy.

3. After a certain point, I stop writing the scene. Sometimes this is where it ends. Other times, if I like the story, I start to flesh it out, build something up around it, a fuller plot. Why was this girl alone in the fog? Who is she running from? Why was this man out here in the fog in the shadow if this haunted hillfort? And how do they react to each other? What happens next? Also at this stage I think about what other elements I want to include in the story, in this case, vampires who really are bad guys and not suitable love interests, and with an origins story for these vampires which is part of the main story.

4. Background. I can only get so far with a plot before I have to stop and think about the context of the story. This is when I do the majority of my worldbuilding, and start changing what I already have to more closely match the rules of the world I am creating and create an overall theme or tone. In the story I'm working on at the moment, this is when i decided to change the vampires I was planning to include to something else. I realised I needed them to be different from traditional vampires, and I was already using the haunted hillfort as a magical channel enabling their creation, so I changed them from vampires to Ghostbound, humans bound by magic to ghosts, who are stronger during the night and particularly under a full moon, but who can be killed by iron or fire or healed of wounds by taking the life force of other living beings. I worked out the magic system (based upon magical hotspots and leylines, strengthened by the moon, weakened by iron and fire, and generally involving binding spells), the political landscape, the culture, history, geography and climate. This is the stage I am at now.

5. I go back and work through the plot, making sure it fits with what I am trying to accomplish in terms of how the plot is driven, what characteristics the characters have, etc.

6. I start writing, generally at a different point of the story to the first scene I wrote in step 2, with that scene appearing later in a modified form.

7. I hit a brick wall about three quarters of the way through, wonder why I'm doing this, decide to change something earlier in the story which then requires a lot of legwork to correct for continuity in the rest of the story, change back, skip ahead to a scene I've had in my head for a while and write that four times over with slight differences each time, look back at the bit I got stuck at and try to keep writing from there, give up, start again from scratch, question the value of the story, give up again, return to an old work I haven't touched in a while, write a few scenes on that, give up again and, finally, start at step one with a new idea.

ROFL, that sounds so familiar!

 

[CicadaGrrl]

Think I may have said this somewhere before.

Six month prep. Six months through a fairly clean first draft.

First, I spend most of that prep time on characters. Type in something like, "character worksheet" to google. You'll get a bunch. I want to know as much as I possibly can about characters as possible before I start. Their whole life history. Every lover. The games they played as a kid. That annoying tic they have. Whether they are insecure about their height.

If I am good with my characters, I am good with the book. They will quickly help me organize the plot, the conflicts, the world, because it all belongs to them.

How I physically do this: The Big Magnetic Board and Inspiration.

The Big Board is a nine by three piece of sheet metal (careful. Sharp edges) nailed to my office wall. I sit in there and twirl in my office chair. Occasionally I get an idea, I scribble it on a scrap of paper, and stick it to the board. These scrap ideas can be gathered throughout the day as well and stuck up when I get the chance. Eventually I start arranging these into patterns. The patterns start having the shape of a book. Happy there? No.

I need further, more detailed patterns. So I take elements from patterns and use Inspiration to create scenes (tho wikis might be good too). Inspiration was originally a school program. I was introed to it in my teaching program but quickly subverted. Inspiration allows you to quickly and oh so easily click to make concept and cluster maps with words not only in the bubble, but along the lines to describe the relationship. It also does another form of maps and outlining. You can turn a map to an outline and back to a map again. You do have a certain limit of space to the page if you want to look at it all at once. If i go over that I figure I'm being too detailed or have too much scene in one place. I then use the Inspiration map to write one scene. Inspiration is an awesome program available for Mac or PC on line and if you have a student ID have it out and ready for a nice discount.