The Writing Process

[Droo]

I'm going to be as terse as I possibly can here. One day, I want to be a published writer. It seems that, as I push thirty, there is nothing else in this world I'd be happier doing than making a living writing stories. And, like many of you guys here, I'm no stranger to the writing process, and by which, I mean my writing process, since the experience is surely different for everyone. Now, with that in mind, I can safely say that there are a number of inherent problems with my own writing process and, if I'm going to start taking my aspirations seriously, they need to be addressed.

First and foremost, I am a slow writer, a painfully slow writer. Once, I tried to take the NaNoWriMo challenge and not only did it not last long, but it also turned out to be an incredibly frustrating and depressing experience. I've listened to countless authors talk about how it is imperative writers breeze through their first draft (and at a formidable pace, too, when deadlines are involved - which is often) and then return to the work for redrafting, editing and polishing the whole thing until its ready for publishing. This, I cannot do.

When I write, I trudge through sentence after sentence, editing and re-editing as I go along. Whether its language, sentence structure, repetition, alliteration, metaphor, rythmn, whatever - I cannot help myself. The perfectionist in me will nag as I move onto the next paragraph, reminding me of my own dissatisfaction, which in turn affects my enthusiasm for the rest of the work. This inner editor we're instructed to ignore, and are told to, at best, make notes for future revisions. That's one reason I write slowly.

The other is the inability to translate what is in my head to what is on the page: in other words, a language defficiency. So often I know exactly what it is I want to convey, but no choice or combination of words manages to capture the tone set out by my imagination. When I ignore my instincts and just muddle through with any old words, I find that exacerbates problem number one, mentioned above. So, on top of my ill-disciplined editorial habits, this lack of linguistic fluency hampers my progress more than I'd care to admit, really.

To put things into perspective here, let me give you an example. Today I made a post and decided to test my own writing process with it: in the end, it was 586 words long, and took me 1 hour and 32 minutes to finish. After 26 minutes, I had completed the first paragraph and decided to take a break for lunch, partly because I wasn't making much progress, but mainly because I could here people talking downstairs (more on this madness later). Fourteen minutes later, I was back and decided to ignore my inner editor as much as I could and soldiered on to write the other 488 words. So, minus the lunch break, total actual writing time was 1 hour and 18 minutes, which rounds off to an average of about 450 words/hour - that's 7.5 words/minute. And I want to be a writer?

Then there's a host of other obstacles in the way. I mentioned before that I stopped writing earlier today because I could hear the murmur of conversation coming from the room directly below me - yes, when I write I need absolute silence. That means no music, no TV, no talking, no noisy kids in the street, no cars, etc. etc. - all of those sounds damage my calm and disrupt my oh-so-sacred writing process. This is ridiculous, not least of all because it makes me come across as the worst kind of cantankerous grouch, but also because it limits me to writing at very particular times during the day, namely first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

Also, when I embark on a more substantial bulk of writing, I will always make a plan: sometimes it can be a rough sketch of events, others it will be a plan of excruciating detail, which obviously takes more time but, on the bright side, is does trim down the amount of time I waste mulling over word choices or editing on the fly. I don't particularly think this is a bad habit, certainly not when compared to the others, because I don't think it hurts to have some insight into what direction you're story is going and how you're going to get it there. But maybe I plan too much, and should I wish to write a 90,000 word novel, then I daresay I'd be planning for a long long time - so I suppose I do rely on it as a crutch rather than a guide.

These are some of the bad habits that have become an everyday part of my own writing process. They are hinderances and I'm seeking to be rid of them, which led me to a number of articles which tackle this issue:

Roni Loren's Slow Writer Reform Schhol (http://www.roniloren.com/fictiongroupiearchives/2011/11/30/slow-writer-reform-school.html) with blog entry (http://www.roniloren.com/blog/2012/11/16/slow-writer-reformed-it-can-be-done.html).

Ann Agguire's article on Changing Your Process (http://writerunboxed.com/2012/11/14/changing-your-process/).

And, of course, Michael Stackpole's The Secrets (http://www.stormwolf.com/thesecrets/podcasts/secretfeed.xml) podcast.

In the first article, the writer tackled her own similar issues in a fashion which makes me think of how someone would approach a change of fitness routine or a healthier lifestyle: targets were set, in this case, minimum word counts, and it was up to the writer to have the willpower to see it through. Then after x amount of weeks, when that starts to feel comfortable, raise the bar, and so on and so forth. I think this is something for me, a way for me to set a goal, and measure my progress, because otherwise, with my current level of output, my dream of becoming a published author will remain just that: a dream.

Anyway, the reason why I brought this not-so-terse-after-all topic to the forum is because I'm curious to hear about your own writing process: what conditions do you recquire in order to be productive in your work? Have you developed any of your own bad habits? Are you also a slow writer? Do you feel you read enough? Do you rely on a plan or do you just write by the seat of your pants ("pantsing" is the term tossed around writer's forums, apparently, although I was under the impression that it was something rather different), or are you a serial procrastinator?

And finally, to get to the real meat of it all, do you have any advice of your own to share, and do you know of any useful resources for fellow would-be authors?

[Vince]

Procrastinator. PROCRASTINATOR. I procrastinate the hell out of most everything I do.

A million ideas a minute, and then nothing when it comes to fleshing them out. I also edit on the fly, though it's not as crazy as you seem to deal with. I just can't stand misspellings or grammar errors glaring enough that I notice them while I'm writing. And I know I change my mind about certain things while I'm writing - usually word order and sequence of events - and I also know that if I don't implement those changes immediately, I will not make those changes at all.

Silence is nice, but not completely necessary. I'll write to music, but that slows down the process significantly; it's better when I listen to music beforehand as a sort of ritual preparation. I can't write original stuff at all when other people are in the room, or at least when I feel like I don't have enough privacy for the work to shape in. It's like a need a veil to hide my writing before I feel it's ready enough to be displayed.

I haven't actually written some original stuff for weeks now because of RL. RL sucks especially when it gets in the way of a solid twelve hours of writing, because I lock myself away and don't leave the computer for hours while I'm writing. I can bang out a couple pages in a half hour and then take five hours for the next page after that. A lot of it is dependent on my situation also; I just can't seem to hunker down and write when there are a lot of things on my plate, so to speak. Time management goes out the window and I just sit there thinking about what I want to write and how, but my fingers don't move.

I normally don't take breaks either, unless I need to eat, drink, or use a restroom, or I am called to do something else. It's caused some friction as I'm called a hermit and some (especially my father) tell me to "join the living".

I usually have to force myself to write, though I love doing it, and I do a bit of outlining and writing by the seat of my pants. I usually try and figure out the themes I'm trying to work with in the story and then go from there.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Droo, you need to rent a beach cottage and have a writers retreat for when you want to write your novel. :)

I can write with all sorts of things going on and my brain is generally always ready to supply me with something to put on a page or a post. But I always get hung up after the first act of a novel and momentum halts and then eventually the whole thing gets put away. I am terrible at plotting out arcs ahead of time so when I get to the part where in an RP you have input from others for inspiration and there isn't any I get stuck or think my ideas are crap.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I need a minimal amount of noise when I'm writing too. I don't mind music too much, but conversation (whether on the TV or actually people talking around me) throws off my ability to concentrate... I keep tuning into the conversation, expecting someone to try and involve me in it somehow.

One thing which I found to be useful, that arouse out of Nanowrimo, was having what I've come to think of as a 'Scratchpad.'

(Let me explain.)

I found that after writing for Nanowrimo, I could then quite easily go on and write other non-Nano related stuff without too much effort. Just the process of forcing myself to write some 1600 words in what was often a single setting would... loosen up my writing. Even after Nano, I started repeating this process, though on a smaller scale. I choose something to write about - inspired by something that I've thought about that day, something I've been reading.. it could be original, or it could be like a fanfiction. Whatever it is, it's a new, indepedent thing. It's not something that I want to turn into a RP post or to a book. Just a piece of writing. Or what I've come to think of as my Scratchpad, since I write it and then at the end of the day, I scratch it out.

I don't keep whatever I write during that 'warm up'. I don't save the contents of the Scratchpad, so there is no pressure to make it up to a certain standard or to have it make a great deal of sense.

I know some people probably think that's crazy, but it helps me!

[Zenas Codrey]

If I'm writing RP posts, it's just a matter of reading the previous posts enough times to envision the scene and find my character's part in it. Then I hammer out the post. Sometimes this takes only a few minutes, other times it takes hours, days...though I try not to let it go more than a week.

As far as writing original things, or plotting storylines for my characters here, I have an easy time finding main events, but I can't put them together. So if I outline it, it looks like:

Intro--Protagonist introduced, plight established

Main Event 1--Gained an ally/love interest.

Main Event 2--Found a new skill/power/weapon to aid the quest.

Main Event 3--Suffered loss (ostracized, amputated limb, loss of a loved one, etc).

Main Event 4--Skirmish with Villain.

But what connects this stuff? What happens in between? I sure as hell don't know, and I can never figure out how to plan those quiet little moments and have them hook the big stuff together, and I get fed up and drop it. It's why I try to throw in with everyone else here; my involvement in their arcs becomes the "small stuff" to chain my Main Events together.

[Captain Untouchable]

I don't have one set writing process. My writing process is more like a revolver: if the one I'm trying doesn't work, I re-cock and swivel round to the next one and see if that helps. I find that some techniques work better than others for some settings / circumstances / characters.

Some of the stuff I do:

Pretend you're telling the story to someone. I find that whether you're telling an anecdote or making something up on the fly, it's a lot easier to get the thoughts out of your head than if you sit down to "write a story". I think it's perhaps because chatting and anecdotes are far more casual: it doesn't matter if you make a mistake when you're recounting something to friends, so you don't waste so much effort trying to get it right first time. Sometimes I actually do tell the story to someone, whether it's by a PM or grabbing them on Skype. (Edit: I've just realised that I'm writing this whole reply as if it's to Droo directly, so I guess I'm utilising this one even now!)

Read out loud. Or at least talk in your head. I'll quite often rehearse posts (or part of posts) to myself while I'm doing a dull or mundane task. Sometimes it's just a matter of getting events straight in my head; sometimes I'll stumble across particular phrasings that I like, which I can then bust out later on when I try and type it out. If I get stuck, I'll read it aloud (or under my breath), to see if the rhythm jostles anything loose. I was actually doing this approach with this post on the train home last night, thinking over how I was going to phrase/describe my processes (didn't want to write the post on my phone).

Write as the character you're writing about. With some of the characters I write there's a very different writing style to others. This is a side effect of me trying to get in their heads before I write anything. Sometimes it's as simple as doing the music ritual that Vince talked about. With others it's a bit weirder. If I'm writing a post as Inyos Aamoran, I grab the TV remote, hold it in front of me like lightsaber, and do some "clear your mind" breathing type stuff. I don't write posts in their voice per se, but I find it easier to work out what a Jedi would do if I'm in a Jedi frame of mind. I've occasionally done in-character conversations with people to help with this; for me personally, it all helps me get a handle on who the character is, which makes writing easier.

Write a script, or a "plan with dialogue". When I'm planning out what is going to happen in a story or thread, I'll sketch down some ideas in pencil (I don't know why, but it has to be pencil on paper) that briefly outlines the events that are going to happen. As I go, the odd phrase of dialogue will pop into my head, so that gets tumbled into the notes as I go. When I then come to review the notes and type them up, I can then embellish, throw in the descriptive text that I need, and so forth. Oliver Queen is in a dark alley, thinking about how much more awesome than Batman he is serves as a trigger point - instead of describing the whole thing at once, I'm expanding on little bits at a time... what's the alley like, why do I think he's better than Batman, why does Oliver think he's better than Batman, etc?

Think about it all the time. Don't get into the mindset of "writing is only for writing time". I use the memo function on my phone or a notepad in my pocket to jot down notes and ideas. When I'm doing something boring, I think about how I might describe what's around me if I was writing a story, or I think "How would this be different if it was a story set fifty years in the future?" Yesterday on the tube I saw someone with their Oyster card tucked into their glove, and started thinking about a scifi story where people have chips in their hands for that sort of stuff; that turned into contactless payment in the queue for McDonalds, and by the time I was on the platform freezing my nads off I had a scene in my head where a guy swipes his palm at the customs desk at an airport, and the customs guy starts trying to chat with him about how his football team did in the game last night, because it pulled up "helpful topics for friendly banter" tips from the guy's Facebook profile along with everything else.

If you're writing a novel, and you're doing it in Word (other software is available), change the font, the page size, page borders, etc so it's about the same as a book. If you're writing a novel and it actually looks like a novel on the screen in front of you, I find it easier somehow. It helps a lot too when it comes to trying to get the pacing right: if your chapter isn't the right number of pages, of if you're description of something is running on a few pages too long, you can see that as you go.

Don't always write in order. I find some stuff hideously tedious to write. There's always one chapter - often the first, or at least the first one about a specific character - that I find agonizing to write. I remember you telling me about having similar problems with that awesome first post you wrote as John. What I do in these situations is skip it. I'll sketch down a quick impression of what a particular chapter / scene is going to involve, and I'll start with a part I find easier. Once I'm in the groove, or once I've got a better sense of the character having dealt with them via interactions with other people after after the fact, I can go back and reintroduce them. Sometimes that means tweaking stuff I've already written to make it consistent: that's pretty much what my second draft is about.

Basically, I just try all sorts, and hope one eventually works out. :uhoh

[Peter McCoy]

Jenny, I love that Scratchpad idea! It's almost like you're opening your brain, flipping upside down and seeing what falls out. That's something I'm going to try, except I'll keep what I write and return to it after sometime (maybe several weeks) and see if anything can be done with it.