Your writing process?

October 10, 2005 12:04 PM

Dear writers- I am wondering about your process, your approach to a story (novel or short or whatever) from a seed in your mind to something on paper and then to a final draft?

Long, tangential responses are certailnly appreciated.

posted by xmutex to media & arts (20 comments total)

I have a lot of trouble with this process. I tend to only complete short stories as the process for writing a longer story tends to sour me on the original idea of the story. For me, the best part of writing is dialog and wit. If I can't interject one of the two into everything I write, I move on. My hard drive is littered with half-formed ideas and pages of meandering prose.

I actually graduated college with an English major with a concentration in creative writing. I learned some methods of writing there at which I've never personally succeeded, but which may help you.

1) Any good piece of writing has one or two simple ideas at its core. If it's a segment of dialog, a "perfect" crime, a fantastic new technology, or even just a difficult situation, that will be everything you need. If your story has more than one or two simple ideas at its core, be prepared to work very hard to keep your writing simple. Nothing bothers me more as a writer as trying to manage and tie-in each chapter (or even at the paragraph level) with too many ideas.

2) Every decent story presents an event that begins the plot. You can't have a meaningful story where nothing has ever changed, and it's not likely to ever do so in the future. Something has to kick-start the story into being a story.

3) The process of laying out the events and ideas of your story can easily be coerced into the classic outline form (this is where I tend to fail at the process). Outline the progress of your ideas by trying to stay away from the actual writing, for now. Try to, at the very least, outline the major sections of your story, concentrating on the beginning and the ending. If you've got a solid understanding of how the story begins and ends, the rest of it is just filler.

I've gotten advice on how to get beyond my own general disenchantment with this step: Write an outline for your ideas, and then don't return to the outline again until the sour aspect of realizing your imagination in outline form has eased, and you can return to your outline with a fresh look. I've only managed to do this with outlines and ideas I wrote up years ago. My problem isn't that I just sour on the ideas: I begin to genuinely dislike them.

4) Do all those things professional writers tell you to do: Set up a specific time to write. Do a small amount every day so that your imagination doesn't tire on the idea. Work in an environment that's either conducive to your idea or reduces distractions.

5) To write good dialog, listen to good dialog. To write good prose, read good prose. Never stop reading.

There's a considerable amount to say on this subject, but those are my highlights.
posted by thanotopsis at 12:22 PM on October 10, 2005

i mostly write short stories and to start i have to have a character and a situation, something for them to do. i've taken tons of writing classes at the loft here in minneapolis and one of the things we always discuss in class are the five questions:
what does your character want?
what is your character afraid of?
what's at stake?
why is the story being told now?
what are the consequences of these scenes or actions?

so as i sit down to start writing i try to answer those questions. the first draft, for me, is just trying to get the story out. i don't worry about the poetry of the language, punctuation, any of that stuff. i just need to get the story on the paper, i need to capture the character's voice.

then comes about 39,958 revisions. that's when i agonize over word choice, when i have to separate the character's voice from my own, and cut, cut and then cut a little more.

then it's time to print it out and read it outloud. that's when i usually catch most of my clumsy phrasings, when i notice that i've used the word 'absent' or something like that about 30 times.

at that point, when i am so sick of it i just want to delete it. that's when i give it to readers i trust.

and then the whole process starts all over again.
posted by jodic at 12:25 PM on October 10, 2005

Dear writers- I am wondering about your process, your approach to a story (novel or short or whatever) from a seed in your mind to something on paper and then to a final draft?

Well, I do pretty well with the 'seed in the mind' part, its getting it down on paper that's a problem. Unless I have a hard deadline (if I'm taking a class or something). In that case it usualy involves a mad dash to finish it so I don't fail the class :P

What I've discovered is a huge help is to have a full outline before I start. Without an outline, it's like I'm "flying blind". When I have an outline I never get stuck, because I can just look up and see what I'm supposed to write next.

It's nice to be able to sit down and just type whatever comes into your mind, but if you want any kind of complex plot at all, an outline will be very helpful.
posted by delmoi at 12:33 PM on October 10, 2005

write a draft.

draft early, draft often.

sometimes the draft is only a few words long, sometimes it turns into a two hours "in the zone" writing session.

the key is to start early, and to trust myself to write as much as I need to.

If I panic over a looming deadline, I write less well. but if I start early, and 'empty the vessel' of my inspiration, the writing gets done - and it's better, more inspired, better-written, than if I had waited until the last moment to get it done.

Then, I echo what jodic wrote: then come about 39,958 revisions. that's when i agonize over word choice, when i have to separate the character's voice from my own, and cut, cut and then cut a little more.

then it's time to print it out and read it outloud. that's when i usually catch most of my clumsy phrasings, when i notice that i've used the word 'absent' or something like that about 30 times.

I've never been a fan of "appointment writing". It works for some writers, but not for me. However, I do write most days - mostly in the evenings.
posted by seawallrunner at 12:34 PM on October 10, 2005

I'm not a writer, but I found Holly Black's links interesting.
posted by small_ruminant at 12:48 PM on October 10, 2005

My first drafts are shit, and I know they're going to be. The point of a first draft is to get whatever is in my mind out there on paper. It's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be witty. It's not going to be anything but a skeleton upon which I can later build my story.

From there, writing is a matter of constant, extensive revision.

Most new writers don't revise enough. Or, if they do revise, they make simple, inconsequential revisions like rephrasing a few sentences here and there.

New writers should force themselves to exercise their revisionary muscles. Take a story written from one point of view, and recast it from a completely different point of view. Change the main character. If the story is 10,000 words, cut it to 5,000 words. Now cut it to 3,000 words. Or, if the story is 3,000 words, expand it to 6,000 words and add a new character who will be the main character.

Crazy stuff like this not only gives a young writer a chance to exercise her muscles, but it often reveals aspects of the story that she never knew were there. Too often, writers become attached to the germ of the idea they begin with, never realizing that the real story is this little bit here, which shows itself on page three. Who would have thought?

The most important thing, of course, is to actually write. To hell with schedules. Just write. Don't turn on the television. Write! Don't check Metafilter. Write! Don't go out for a beer. Write! When you have an idea, free yourself from other obligations as soon as possible, find a spot, and write freeform. Don't worry about content. Just get the idea down. Write it out.

I could ramble for days on this topic, but I have to go write down an idea that just occurred to me...
posted by jdroth at 1:15 PM on October 10, 2005

Unlike most everyone here, I'm not a big reviser. I just think about the peice I want to write until I've assimilated it into my head; that is, I spend a couple of days (at least) turning it over in my head, maybe jotting down little phrases or screeds. Then I sit down and write it out, usually looking at the jottings when I'm finished to be sure I didn't forget anything. I'll show it to one or two trusted folks--who will point out the places I've assumed knowledge that isn't there and other errors--and read it over once myself to correct word choice.

For longer peices, the closest I've come to outlining is writing down a basic progression. That usually happens a quarter of the way in, when the whole organization, which has obviously been filled in while I turn things over, becomes clear to me.

So, yeah, it's intuitive. And I don't write till I'm ready to avoid drafts. For a short work (say under 3000 words), that'll be a few days. For a longer one, it can be months. Generally, I think a more deliberate process shows in the writing, but a lot of people disagree. I write mostly nonfiction, creative and otherwise. I've been published a bit and some people think I'm very good. Some people don't. So feel free to ignore all the above. I did want to put this perspective up for consideration.
posted by dame at 1:42 PM on October 10, 2005

The only novel-length anything I've ever finished was last year's Nanowrimo, and I did that fully by the seat of my pants. It's utter, utter crap but it was a blast to write. And now I know that I can, actually, write a novel. So if procrastination or fear is your problem, try Nano! It starts on November 1.

Also, it helped me to learn that writing by the seat of my pants really doesn't work for me. I've spent the last year trying to get it together again to start another novel (a proper one, this time, rather than just doing to see if I can) and after tons of therapy (yes, really) and reading every writing book I could get my hands on (read Bird by Bird if you haven't already) I'm ready to start trying to set up an outline. I've been stuck here for months, though, because how exactly does one outline, right? It's not Roman numerals and bullet points. I picked up a remaindered copy of Terry Brooks' writing book, and he says that he just writes pages and pages of notes as his outline. I'm trying it and it's working, so far. Just things that pop up about your characters, the settings, the events. I'm not even trying to put it into prose.

Also, one thing that's helped tremendously is doing Julia Cameron's morning pages (from The Artist's Way.) You get up, every day, and handwrite three pages of whatever it is that's on your mind. Your writing, the weather, whatever. Just do it. I've been doing this for the last few months. Write every day. Once you get into the habit it's easier to keep going and you (well, at least I) feel guilty when I skip out.

You might want to read Paperback Writer's blog; she writes romance novels and science fiction books and she's working on a series about vampires and she writes like six or eight books a year, no kidding. Plus she's no bullshit and her take on the publishing industry is fascinating.

Sorry if this has been a bit rambly, but these are the things that I spend a lot (a lot) of time thinking about.
posted by sugarfish at 3:09 PM on October 10, 2005

Also, one thing that's helped tremendously is doing Julia Cameron's morning pages (from The Artist's Way.) You get up, every day, and handwrite three pages of whatever it is that's on your mind. Your writing, the weather, whatever. Just do it. I've been doing this for the last few months. Write every day.

This is exactly why I have a weblog. I do not post everything I write. Most of what I write is crap. But I do write every day, and copiously. All because I have a weblog that family and friends read. They hold me accountable. "Why haven't you posted this week?" someone will ask, and I'll realize that I've allowed myself to slip out of the writing habit.

If you are an aspiring writer looking for motivation, start a weblog and share the URL with your family and friends. It may be a great help.
posted by jdroth at 3:17 PM on October 10, 2005

-- Write a non-edited draft first, then revise a zillion times: I sometimes work this way; sometimes my method is more like dame's. I don't think there's a big difference, really. Dame's just "writes" the draft and edits it in her mind. Some people can do that. Some people need paper. But you still have to dump it out (maybe from one part of your mind to another) and then revise, revise, revise.

-- As Hemmingway said, "Kill all your darlings." For many people, this is the hardest part of the process. Many never kill their darlings, because their darlings are their DARLINGS. But gratuity is the enemy of art (or even clear communication). If something is not furthering your story, axe it. It may be the funniest joke you've ever thought of. Give it the boot. Be merciless. And see if you can get into the aesthetics of doing this. I've reached a point where I can say, "That sure is a beautiful sentence. Boo-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What a JOY it will be to watch it DIE!"

-- Learn from Stanislavsky. It's too bad Stan is only known in theatrical circles. He has GREAT advice for writers of fiction. In a nutshell, his system involves each character having a goal which can be expressed as a verb phrase: Ben wants TO SEDUCE sarah. Sarah wants TO ROB Jim. Jim wants TO FLEE FROM Mike...

These goals must be achievable through concrete tactics. A bad goal is "to be happy." What on Earth would you do to achieve that? But there are concrete things you can do in order to steal, to seduce, to marry, to kill... Each character tries to achieve these goals and either does so or is thwarted by some obstacle (generally thrown up by another character -- or by some internal force: shyness, jealousy, etc. Or by an act of God).

If a character meets with an obstacle, he switches to another tactic in order to overcome it and achieve his goal. If he tries all tactics and STILL doesn't achieve his goal, he loses. He must then either be jettisoned from the story (most stories themselves end when the hero achieves -- or fails to achieve -- his goal) or he must acquire a new goal.

Story-wide goals (which Stanislavsky called Superobjectives) can be broken down into scene (or chapter) goals. Jim's Superobjective is to steal a million dollars. In this chapter, he is trying to get a job in a bank, which is a subgoal of his main goal.

If you're interested in learning more about this system, I highly recommend "A Practical Handbook for the Actor."

-- Find a really good editor (this can be an astute friend) and work with him/her. Most people can't see their own work objectively.

-- Revenge stories can be good in theory, but in reality they usually suck. So if you're writing a story that is secretly (or overtly) aiming to show your Dad that his politics sucks, or if your trying to make your ex-girlfriend feel bad that she dumped you, save it for an email. No one is going to want to read it except you.

-- Clunky exposition is NOT allowed. You may NOT write, "How nice it is to be strolling down this country lane in 1816," because people don't talk that way. Since writers are not allowed to make excuses, you may not say, "but I needed to let the reader know what year it was." Too bad. Find another way. (MAN, I wish TV writers would follow this rule.)

-- Laziness is not allowed. Good writers do research. A LOT of it. If you're not willing to research, ONLY write about stuff you know very very well -- or totally made up stuff (you're free to make up details about the planet Bloroflix). If you've never lived in an inner-city ghetto, don't write about one unless you research it first.

-- Verbs are good. Adjectives and adverbs are bad. There are a million examples of great writing that prove this rule wrong. Still, until you are a GREAT writer, stick to this rule.

-- Simple language is better than complex language (unless you're very gifted). "He asked her" is better than "he queried her."

-- Metaphor is for making things CLEARER and more CONCRETE. Don't write, "His eyes were like the golden force surrounding the universe of his soul," because I can't envision that. I don't know what that looks like. Write, "Her fear slapped her in the face like a glove." I can envision that. That makes "her fear" clearer to me and more concrete.

-- Don't use metaphor at all, unless it makes something clearer. Don't use it because it's "poetic" or "to spice up your writing." When in doubt don't use it (or any other poetical or rhetorical device). Just try to write CLEARLY -- accurately describing what's in your head.

-- Details make things universal. Setting your story in NO TIME or in SOME REMOTE LAND just makes it hard to grasp. It's better to set your story in a specific cabin, in a specific forest, in a specific country. It's better to describe the logo on the specific mug that your character is holding in his hand. The more you're specific, the more I can imagine it. The more I can imagine it, the more I can relate to it -- even if I don't live in that cabin; even if I don't own a mug like that.

-- read good writers and steal from them. For instance, here's something cool I learned from F. Scott Fitzgerald (man, you can learn SO much from him!) In "The Great Gatsby," he describes Daisy's reaction to a party. His goal is to make us understand how much she hates the party. But he starts out like this (I'm paraphrasing wildly, because I don't have the book in front of me -- Scott's version is MUCH better, of course):

"I like that man," Daisy said, "the one over there with the sort of long nose. And that girl with him. She's lovely." But she hated everyone else.

There's something SO powerful about singling out the ONE thing someone LIKES about a party to makes us feel how much they HATE the party in general. But I never would have thought of this trick before reading Gatsby. Thanks, F!
posted by grumblebee at 3:23 PM on October 10, 2005 [2 favorites]

I don't draft, outline, or rewrite. I do minor edits, but not all of that pre- and post-production stuff. It works for a lot of people, but it doesn't work for everybody, and it's not the magic bullet. When I try to do it, it almost always backfires, and by the time it's finished, I can't remember what interested me in the story to begin with. The thought that my "first draft" is just going to be junked is hateful to me, because I'm just so damned lazy. I'd rather use every part of the buffalo than go out and kill another one.

It has occured to me in the past that this sort of process might put a structural limitation on the size of anything I write, because for it to work I have to be able to fit the entire thing in my mind at once. Sure enough, the quality of my writing doesn't seem to scale very well, and the best stuff I've written is probably not longer than eight pages. People who write novels must go about the entire process of writing very differently than I do. In fact, I hope some of them chime in here so that I can identify them as weirdos.
posted by Hildago at 4:27 PM on October 10, 2005

I don't think there's a big difference, really. Dame's just "writes" the draft and edits it in her mind. Some people can do that. Some people need paper.

I think there is a difference, though. I've known people to write both ways, and in the latter case, it often comes through belabored. I think you are less tied to the original formulation when your brain has erased it in all the stewing.
posted by dame at 4:35 PM on October 10, 2005

Dame, I think there are benefits and potential traps to both approaches. The trap of editing in my head is that it can grow into a lazy habit (once I get it on paper, it's done.) For me, it's never done. It make have to be turned in, due to some deadline, but it's never done. It can always be improved. Even if you have a super-memory, there is a limit to what you can hold in your mind. So if you really decide that it's done once it reaches the page, you may be missing some crucial edits.

You're right, though. That negative is also a positive. You don't have to worry about "killing your darlings" if you've forgotten all about them.
posted by grumblebee at 5:04 PM on October 10, 2005

My process is as follows.

1. Self seduction. Candle light, cocktails and whatever else it takes to feel inspired and ready.

2. I write my story, poem or whatever, until it is over. I know that in most cases I will need to rewrite and revise. That's ok as long as I know that I have captured the complete string of ideas.

3. I put it away. When I pull it back out again, after a few days, I let my girl/S.O. read it. She criticizes and does a simple edit, basically showing me the point at which I had focused more on the cocktails than the writing.

4. Time for business. Revise and edit. This is the point when I take my silly story and turn it into a work of art. No cocktails, no candle light. Perhaps a walk or two around the block while I wrestle with myself and my ideas.

5. Presentation. A redo of #3. That is when I go for my second round of revise and edit. By this time, the editing is only a mild matter of semantics or grammer. Little things that make the work perfect.

I like some of the previous comments better than my own, but you never know what fits until you read as much as you can. Good luck in your writing.
posted by snsranch at 5:49 PM on October 10, 2005

So if you really decide that it's done once it reaches the page, you may be missing some crucial edits.

There's something between done when it hits the page and never done.* In fact, I'm pretty sure that most pieces are done at some point; the final result may be crap, and at that point nothing good is coming out of that piece. Then you move on. Some things can only be improved by being abandonned. You may come back to the same ideas at another point, but that attempt is dead.

* I did make that point originally. I go over it once or twice (rarely twice) and have an editor look at it.

Also, I am continuing this discussion in the hope that it helps elucidate the two methods. Not just to argue.
posted by dame at 6:28 PM on October 10, 2005

I tend to follow the "write your life" advice, insofar as I tend to write about subjects, settings, and characters that I'm familiar with. The initial idea is often something dear to me, but I tend to apply the critical approach first: I wrench out the meaning (or "meaning") and then cast it into action. It helps me to work with a sort of thesis statement. I tend to craft in such a way that every element contributes to the theme. I write very slowly in utter silence, and I tend to revise as I'm going. I can't get on the revisions bandwagon. I don't trust myself later any more than I trust myself now. I make a list of ideas. Sometimes I sketch little drawings. I take walks and work out scenes. I live in my fictional world. People speak to me and I jump. When I've got it completed, I feel very tall and like a criminal.
posted by luckypozzo at 7:00 PM on October 10, 2005

-- Don't use metaphor at all, unless it makes something clearer. Don't use it because it's "poetic" or "to spice up your writing." When in doubt don't use it (or any other poetical or rhetorical device). Just try to write CLEARLY -- accurately describing what's in your head.

Or, if you prefer, don't.

For my money, the best advice on this thread is jdroth's --

The most important thing, of course, is to actually write. To hell with schedules. Just write. Don't turn on the television. Write! Don't check Metafilter. Write! Don't go out for a beer. Write! When you have an idea, free yourself from other obligations as soon as possible, find a spot, and write freeform. Don't worry about content. Just get the idea down. Write it out.
posted by Marquis at 3:23 AM on October 11, 2005

It varies.

Sometimes, for a short I have the idea fully formed in my head before I start writing. Then I write it out, maybe hack it about a bit with some major structural revision, and then move on to polishing.

Other times though, the idea grows out of something that I've already written. This happens quite a lot. I start writing without any real idea of where I'm going. Maybe I'm writing about a character, maybe I'm writing some descriptive narrative, maybe some dialogue between a couple of characters. And I play with it, and see where it's going. See whether I like it or not. And sometimes it picks up its own momentum, and soon there's a story there. Perhaps I have to go back and add a beginning. Usually there's some structural revision to do. But from then on, it's like the first approach.

I walk the same way to work every day. I pass a house that became derelict. A ground floor window was broken. There was no garden around the house, it fronted on to the pavement, so I had to step to the side to avoid the torn curtain which blew in and out of the window with the wind. The room was empty, apart from a couple of pieces of furniture which sat there in a a random way. Looking in the window, you could just see through a door into a passage way. This house fascinated me, and I knew I wanted to write about it, but I didn't know what its story was. So I wrote a couple of descriptive passages about how it looked, how it felt, and then someone wandered into the description, walking along the passageway, and they turned to speak for a moment with the as-yet undefined narrator who was peering in through the window, and I wrote what that person said, and the narrator's reaction, and suddenly the whole story coalesced and I knew exactly what the story was, and how I wanted it to feel, and who the narrator was and what he wanted.

The other way it works is that free writing like this loops around to the first approach - the free writing generates an idea. I then think through the idea, and write the story, and the initial text that formed the inspiration for it may not even feature.

I've finished a draft of my first novel now, and it followed a similar approach. It was very much a learning experience for me. I had a scene, a setting, and I wrote around it, and wrote about the characters in it, and that scene came alive and suggested the next, and the next, and then I had around 30,000 words and...it bogged down. Which I think is the danger with this approach. So I went back to the structure and looked at it, and did some planning away from the writing. And along the way of that planning, the story changed, and some of what I had written became redundant. I went through this a couple more times. Sometimes the writing lead away from the planned structure, and I had to revise the structure. Sometimes I went back and chopped huge chunks from the writing because writing (and rewriting, and re-rewriting) the structure to tighten it up showed me that it didn't contribute enough to the story. Much more of that to come as I work through the revision.

Next time around though, I think I am going to attempt to think it through more in advance. I know myself well enough though that I expect any finished novel to look very different from the original plan. But that's ok. As long as it gets better with every change. For me, having an outline for a novel feels like having a path up the hill. It's reassuring. I know it'll take me to the top in the end. And if I jump off the path and go cross-country, that's fine too. But I do need to stop and take my bearings every now and then, and make sure I am still heading up the hill, and not down it, or just round and round it in circles.
posted by reynir at 8:42 AM on October 11, 2005

Read this old thread. Then check out some essays by various writers on the subject: Writers on Writing and Writers on Writing 2 collected from the New York Times, and The Writing Life collected from the Washington Post.

My own thoughts are online, past and present.
posted by cribcage at 11:32 AM on October 11, 2005

Also, see the Paris Review's DNA of Literature. It has interviews with a large number of writers, plus a manuscript page for each. I'm sure it's shown up on Mefi before.
posted by miniape at 6:56 AM on October 13, 2005