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In which I share my best writing process

Jabrosky

Banned
As I've said in the past, I have a terrible track record for finishing the stories I start. However, upon reflecting on the few stories I have finished (all shorts, with the longest having a word count somewhere between six and eight thousand words), I notice a few common trends about the process of writing them:

1. I begin the writing with only the first scene in mind.

2. The first scene sets up the story's main conflict or central theme.

3. Once I write the first scene, the remainder of the story unfolds in my mind. You could consider it a form of mental outlining.

4. I never write this mental outline down on paper or type it into a computer file. I keep it all in my head.

#2 may be the most important trend, because I have found that if I never develop a clear idea of the conflict or theme I want to communicate, I am more likely to not know how to continue a story and end up scrapping the whole project. On the other hand, I have more success if I discover my theme while doing the actual writing than if I plan one during the preliminary (or pre-writing) stage.

I don't intend to give anyone advice on how they should write their stories. Instead I only wish to share what seems to work best for me.
 

PrincessaMiranda

Troubadour
I have the same bad habit of not finishing stories. Outlining sort makes me feel boxed in to that particular path of the story. I like to treat my stories like life, action and consequence. The only problem is, sometimes life gets boring. No one wants to hear about a protagonist doing laundry unless said laundry was covered in blood or of some magical nature. I can't even finish a short story because it WANTS to be longer.

Your method is so similar to mine its scary. :p Though mine doesn't work too well apparently.
 

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
My method is slightly different. I begin with a scene or even a single interaction. It might not be at the start of the story but it's a key scene that does lead on to bigger and better things - not a climax scene.

For a while, a few days usually, I build that scene up to a short arc in my head. I then start writing things down in note form, working ouwards from this scene - how did the characters get there, physically and mentally? What does it lead to? What motivates the characters? What is the setting of the scene? At this stage, I get a lot of ideas for setting, characterisation and further scenes, and a significant proportion of these are shortly afterwards discarded.

Once I've spent enough time working through world, characters and plot in note form - a week or two - and have a good idea of how things are in my head (not everything is written down), then I start writing. I've found about 500 words a day, for the time being, is about how much I can manage. A short scene or part of a scene. I think moving on, the way to increase this is to have two sessions a day rather than trying to write 1000 words in one session. I might try it today since I'm not at work (yay annual leave).
 
There are a lot of ways to mix up outlines and inspiration and all. And no question, the best tool of all is to find the combination that works for you, probably blowing up the boxes to combine different things.

Myself, I'm getting more and more use out of outlining a scene in two main steps, that it's easy for me to first plan dialog (all the "We need to-"/ "But what about-" ideas with the odd "I hate when you-" thrown in) and then go back and weave in who does what between them. It gets talky, but covers a lot and it's fun even in planning.

Also, one of the best discoveries I've made is the "scary bicycle" idea: writing's like the classic bike, easier once you get going, except it's also so intimidating that almost every day seems harder until I force myself to just sit down and go. (For a few other musings: Facing the Blank Screen — the Scary Bicycle.)
 

shangrila

Inkling
I typically begin with a scene as well, but if you ever expect to write a full scale novel you'll need atleast some basic planning. There's no way to just 'wing it' through an entire novel. Trust me, I've tried.
 

Weaver

Sage
If you start out writing a novel with no idea what you want to do with it, you cannot even know if what you started out with is enough to make a novel-length story. That leads to filling the pages with fluff - 'tea drinking' scenes and laundry (which, to be fair, CAN be important to the plot if, for example, the scene revolves around the POV character's favorite shirt getting stolen by the antagonist-not-villian... trust me, it's happened) and long rambles that don't even add to characterization.

I have never found writing an outline to be helpful for me (and I'm very good at writing outlines when I have to, so it isn't 'outline-fear' that makes me avoid them), but I know writers who use outlines all the time and benefit from using them. I have written short fiction with only a very small fragment to start, but my novels (and my twin's - we're mindlinked, y'know, so we're 'collaborating' even when we're writing separately :) ) always have more than that before words are ever put on the page. When I write, much of the initial stage occurs in my head (and sometimes 'out of sight' even for me), but that is not to say that that stage doesn't happen. I suspect it is like that for many writers who don't make outlines: we're 'planning,' but we do it differently.
 

Aosto

Sage
I typically begin with a scene as well, but if you ever expect to write a full scale novel you'll need atleast some basic planning. There's no way to just 'wing it' through an entire novel. Trust me, I've tried.

I think it's a bit far fetched to say that there is 'no way' to 'wing it' through an entire novel. Some people are more creative than others. With that said, it may be more difficult, but certainly not impossible.
I know of one self published author who started out with no outlining. Now, they may not be the greatest novels of all time, but they are novels none-the-less.
I, personally, have found that I need to outline. I succumb to the proverbial 'writers block' without it. So much in fact, that my current WIP has been at a standstill for the last 2 weeks.

So, as many have said, I think it's a matter of finding what works for you. Get out of your comfort zone if you have to, but find what work and go with it.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
If you start out writing a novel with no idea what you want to do with it, you cannot even know if what you started out with is enough to make a novel-length story. That leads to filling the pages with fluff - 'tea drinking' scenes and laundry (which, to be fair, CAN be important to the plot if, for example, the scene revolves around the POV character's favorite shirt getting stolen by the antagonist-not-villian... trust me, it's happened) and long rambles that don't even add to characterization.
This is why it helps me immensely if I figure out my story's core theme at some point during the writing process. Knowing what theme I have to argue through my story helps me generate scene ideas and structure the story.

When I write, much of the initial stage occurs in my head (and sometimes 'out of sight' even for me), but that is not to say that that stage doesn't happen. I suspect it is like that for many writers who don't make outlines: we're 'planning,' but we do it differently.
Exactly what I believe.
 

Weaver

Sage
This is why it helps me immensely if I figure out my story's core theme at some point during the writing process. Knowing what theme I have to argue through my story helps me generate scene ideas and structure the story.

I'm not so good at figuring out theme, as such. The few times in the past I tried to write a story with a theme in mind, rather than let the story be about whatever it's about, the result was a mess, looking contrived and artificial. I envy writers who can decide, 'I'm going to write a story with the theme of loyalty' or whatever, and make it come through naturally, because I can't do that. Then again, I can look at others' stories that I know very well and describe what happens in the story (although not in a perfectly linear fashion - you may have guessed from my forum posts that linear and I don't get along so well), and I can talk about the characters and who they are and how they change over time, and I can go on forever about patterns in the plot and recurring ideas and imagery and whatnot, but if you ask me to describe the themes of that story, I'll come up blank. Every time. Even when I know that the author wrote the story with a specific theme in mind.
 
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