What is your writing technique ?

[CultureCitizen]

I am not very structured when writing but before doing the actual thing

1) I select a main topic which will be touched by the story
2) I create a general plot
3) I create the characters that will be in the plot along with their general traits and their goals.
4) I write ( and often have to re-write).
5) I let the characters move the plot, which sometimes is a bit inconvenient.
I often have to make pauses for research : maps, schematics for props, buildings, city descriptions ( google earth and street view help a lot with this along with youtube).
I spend a lot of time in the environment ( what's the current situation , how did we get to that situation from the present time).
My stories are set in the near future. ( 15 - 40 years from the year in which I write)

At full speed, I can write 5 pages per day , 6 days per week .
That's my maximum any attempt to write more than 5 pages is a complete waste of time, as well as trying to write more than 6 days a week.
But my average is probably half that : about 15 pages per week.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Open ms manuscript
start typing
occasionally stop and ponder
type
edit a lot, for months

 

[Steve Harrison]

This is actually a fun exercise!

Generally, I...
- think about an idea for a while, playing with it in my head, between, say, 6 months and 25 years (latest WIP)
- If I think there's enough story for a novel, when I have a beginning, a few key scenes or plot points and an ending, I start writing
- I write from the beginning to the first plot point, then to the second, and so on, using them as stepping stones
- I never have characters when I start, so as they turn up I go back and forth, editing to flesh them and the story out as details occur to me
- I write on weekends, aiming (hoping) for at least one session of three to four hours. Doesn't always work out. I have no idea how many words/pages I write in a session, but mostly I end up with a higher number of words than when I started (not always).
- I edit the previous session before starting the new one (hence the 'not always'), and perform major page one edits at each quarter stage of the novel. Takes about a year to eighteen months to write the draft
- When I reach the end of the novel, a lot of the work has been done, so the final edits are relatively straight forward.
- Then it's off to my two trusty readers, who provide notes, I decide what and what not to change and it's ready to submit
- At this point, if I sell, the real editing begins...

 

[Toby Frost]

At the risk of sounding facetious, I spend most of my time figuring out what to write next and then writing it. Most of the time, that involves having an idea/objective and then working out how best to express it/get there. These days I tend to write a list of "Things that happen in this book": if more complex plotting is required, I'll figure it out. I write very slowly - about 500 words a day - but regularly.

 

[Harpo]

When I make an effort:
1: every morning, write the alphabet down the left side of a sheet of paper, then fill the page with 26 random ideas, just free form nonsense usually.
2: then, peruse the previous day’s a-z of nonsense ideas, having forgotten them for a whole day, and expand upon whichever are my favourites, filling however much paper I can - maybe a page or two if lucky.
3: then, I further peruse the previous days examples of that expansion, and if any still look like they will work at a larger scale, set aside three entire days for each one. Three days pondering a chunk of nonsense.

And the part I don’t get around to, but hey:
4: if I have enough of those that might work together, I might then use them all for NaNoWriMo and go for 50k words in a month.

Previously, I spent much of 2015-2017 wordsplurging what I called my epic space opera story, and abandoned it on discovering most of the entire scenario was the same entire scenario you might know as The Expanse. Bah.
So, my 300k words have been sat on the shelf for the past five years doing nowt.
Maybe someday I’ll sort through and pick out the bits that aren’t that scenario, and see if they work alone.

 

[Biskit]

1: Have an idea.
2: With no clue what I'm doing, I start writing, making stuff up as I go along, in the vague hope that the idea from (1) gets involved eventually
3:
a: It's coming out well, keep writing. Goto (4).
b: It's coming out badly. Give up. Make a pot of tea. Drop everything in the recycle folder because you never know what might be useful later. Return to (1), which may take some time.
c: It's going nowhere/Bored now/I'm stuck and have no idea what to write next/I've accidentally gone to (1) and had a much more interesting idea. Give up. Make a pot of tea. Return to (1), which may take some time. (With a vague promise o come back and look at it again one day.)
d: It's coming out well, but suddenly there's all these other things to do, and another book to write first, and then there's... Pause there and come back to (3) eventually. This may take some time.
4: Wow. It's a book/novella/short story/flash fiction. And....
a: it reads well enough, apart from the dodgy bits, plot holes, rabid inconsistencies, bad writing, and why is that character even there? Goto (5)
b: it reads badly. Make a pot of tea. Drop everything in the recycle folder because you never know what might be useful later. Return to (1), which may take some time.
5: Edit until my eyes bleed.
6: Submit it, or self-publish, or stick it on my blog.
7: Wonder what became of the idea from step (1)
8: Return to (1), which may take some time.

If it's something like a flash fiction for my monthly contribution to BlogBattle, the whole process might be done in a morning. So far as I can recall, I have hit step 3.b once and 4.b twice, going back and re-writing from scratch, and all three of those were writing for a prompt of some sort.

Writing longer pieces, I have a lot of "openings" ranging from a handful of words up to 30k that have hit 3.b or 3.c and now languish in the hope that I might come back to them one day.

The current WIP started in 2010 and hit 3.d, bounced, hit 3.d again, bounced, hit 3.d again, and now here I am, determinedly writing it and consigning anything else new and interesting to their own 3.d queue.

 

[Wayne Mack]

I haven't yet determined how to plan out a story arc and do not have an end in mind when I start. What I do is to set some constraints on the story. Before starting I decide on the following, in roughly this order:

• General story type, such as: murder mystery, heist, assassination plot.
• Point of view: close third person, first person with unreliable narrator
• Relative time frame: past, present, or future.
• Style: space opera, magic-based fantasy

I then start writing and figure out the following as I go:

• Opening scene
• Primary PoV character's name. After the intro, I'll usually go create a list of characteristics and a backstory for the character.

As I go along, during about the first 10,000 words (this is a guess on my part not a calculated number), I will:

• Create new secondary PoV and non-PoV characters as needed. I keep these in a separate document where I can scan to see that the names are significantly different. I try not to repeat names with the same first letter. I also give each one a key characteristic to describe them with.
• Create tertiary characters, named and unnamed, as needed. These are mostly unnamed, but those I do name, I also record on my spreadsheet.
• Identify the main antagonist, though he or she may not be revealed as such yet.
• Create new locations as needed.
• I start to think ahead at least one scene and often several scenes, though this is just kept in my head.
• I keep a chapter by chapter summary as I write including a description, and the PoV, other characters, and location for each scene. Sometimes, I will write the chapter summary first, other times, I will write it as the chapter progresses.

As my writing progresses, I will:

• Start to imagine key elements of the climatic scene. Sometimes, I will have a couple of conflicting possibilities in mind.
• I stop creating new characters. If I have need of one, I will go back to my spreadsheet and try to reuse a previously introduced character.
• I stop creating new settings and try to revisit old ones.

In the latter half, I will:

• Close out any subplots and character arcs that are hanging open.
• Reveal the antagonist and his or her rationale.
• Select the climax scene and drive the plot line towards it. This involves deciding the location and figuring out how to get all of the characters into the appropriate place.

The final part will be:

• Trying to replicate the dramatic scene from my head onto paper.
• Describing the consequences of the climax. Here, I often have to rein myself in and omit most of the consequences that I can conceive.

 

[OuttaInc]

Almost always the characters appear in my head fully formed, having dialogue. They are usually in the midst of something dramatic and that becomes the climax of a soon-to-be story.

Then I work backwards, outlining a plot that brings the characters up to the point where they first appeared to me. I create a punch list of things that have to happen in order for the climax to be as significant/poignant/momentous as possible.

Then I start fleshing it out over the course of numerous (8-12) revisions.

 

[C.Robin]

Previously, I spent much of 2015-2017 wordsplurging what I called my epic space opera story, and abandoned it on discovering most of the entire scenario was the same entire scenario you might know as The Expanse. Bah.

Same. Mine resembles Ender's game. Spent a year working on it and now I am not sure if I should go for it or not.

 

[C.Robin]

1) Get an idea that looks fun. Brainstorm it.
2) Have an entire movie played out in my head based on that idea. Try to remember as much as possible. Write it down into my idea notepad.
3) Weeks, months, years later start writing. Planing goes with the story, I do very little on the beginning. Just the general idea and where I want to get.
4) Get sidetracked, in the story as well as other projects. Procrastinate.
5) Stubborn/reluctant characters doing whatever they want.
6) What on earth happened to the original idea?
7) What am I doing????
8) Somehow return to the original idea.
9) MC has a different opinion. Let's take scenic route!
10) Somehow end the book with the original ending.

Then the editing starts.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I am not very structured when writing but before doing the actual thing

1) I select a main topic which will be touched by the story
2) I create a general plot
3) I create the characters that will be in the plot along with their general traits and their goals.
4) I write ( and often have to re-write).
5) I let the characters move the plot, which sometimes is a bit inconvenient.
I often have to make pauses for research : maps, schematics for props, buildings, city descriptions ( google earth and street view help a lot with this along with youtube).
I spend a lot of time in the environment ( what's the current situation , how did we get to that situation from the present time).
My stories are set in the near future. ( 15 - 40 years from the year in which I write)

At full speed, I can write 5 pages per day , 6 days per week .
That's my maximum any attempt to write more than 5 pages is a complete waste of time, as well as trying to write more than 6 days a week.
But my average is probably half that : about 15 pages per week.

Hi there,

Are you after tips and help on your process or are you interested in what other people do?

I ask this because there is no right way but if you’re struggling to make it work a certain way, it may help to try someone else’s method.

For me every story is different. The one constant is is not be able to keep on top of it if I didn’t use Scrivener

 

[sknox]

Same as Phyrebrat. This should be too surprising, since we learn as we go. I know some folks can work off a formula, but I'm so deep in the jungle of the story, it's hard for me to look back and see any sort of method or process. I do plan, but it's rather like making maps in the dark--doesn't really indicate where I'm going, but it usually makes me feel better.

 

[Swank]

I have a somewhat consuming image come to me: An enormous machine in an unlikely place, a living person diffused through a large volume; an unusual personal interaction observed by a third party; a spacecraft tumbling through a controlled reentry; antique technology butting up against new.

Then I start having ideas about the people that are there for these events. What sort of people, how they came to be in these situations, why they are in an such environment that they are comfortable or familiar with. That makes a scene out of the image.

Those odd people suggest other types of interactions that would come before or after that scene. Those interactions are conflict, setting up the story or helping resolve it. The dialogue of those scenes set the parameters for those characters - what they would or would not do. Especially the MC.

Search for the resolution. The action and people have expanded from that central image into events that go in both a temporal and storytelling order. Where are they all going? This takes me awhile to think of how to take all the novelty that pulls you through the first 3/4 of the story can become a climax and then a surprising denouement. I find this process unsatisfying and often try to find solutions by seeing the overall story as a shape or equation that could be solved: That the structure of the narrative has an unseen and independent paradigm at work that the specifics of the story can be projected upon.

Notes, acting out scenes in my head, writing chapters out of order, letting it all sit in disgust.

 

[jacksimmons]

Like a few people here, my stories usually start with a vivid scene in my head. A few characters. A setting. And usually some dialogue. It's rare that I know more than this before I start writing. Once I have this first scene done (it is invariably the first scene of the story), I have to stop and go back and work out exactly what the world is, who these people are etc. and that's when I start making notes and the worldbuilding begins.

I have found that this process isn't the most productive when it comes to actually finishing something. More often than not I end up having to revisit earlier chapters because the worldbuilding is knocking heads with the initial scene/concept. Usually this is because I haven't exactly settled on a setting and tone when I start writing.

There are probably more ordered ways of doing things, but I have always been a discovery writer. I would say I am usually two or three chapters in with a few viewpoint characters introduced before I sit down and plan. I normally just have the beginning of the story done, a very vague middle, and then a conclusion for the character arcs. I write with a view to steering in this direction.

Usually, if I feel I have to plan further (for a more complicated story), I end up not finishing. That's the panster in me.

Most recently, I have taken a backwards approach and really fleshed out a world and am now pantsing a story in it, and it's proven pretty effective.

 

[Thiswriterinme]

Chaotic.

That's my writing technique.

I'm a plantser - a comfortable combination between planner and pantser (fly by the seat of your pants). Usually, I get really detailed "downloads" at random times, sometimes when dreaming. They provide me with fully formed characters, world ideas, and/or storylines and arcs. Many of them can be applied to current projects but a lot of them either take on a life of their own or go into a collective "ideas" document.

Most of the time, I get an idea and I just fly with it - that's the pantser in me. Eventually, I get to a point where I have to start making notes and designing details, features, and arcs for consistency and to keep the story moving along, and that is the planner in me. 99.9% of the time, I don't know the ending until I write it.

At any given time, I have 4-5 manuscripts I'm actively writing, 1-2 projects I'm world-building, and 1-2 that I'm editing. I like having variety and the ability to hop around. That way, if I get stuck, I can keep working on another project until that Eurieka moment hits. It helps keep my creativity flowing and prevents me from burning out on a project.

I'm much slower at editing than writing. I can bang out 150k words in less than 3 months on a single manuscript while working on other projects on the side and working full-time as a professional ghostwriter. Editing... I procrastinate on that to no end. So, while I have no problem finishing first drafts, I haven't found my motivation to edit and actually do something with my writing (beyond the desire to do something with it).

I love world-building and will go little nuts with it. But I see it as an important part of my writing technique and the imagining of my creative worlds.

Welcome to the chaos.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I write in longhand with pencil, so that I can erase as I go along. I use a separate notebook to keep useful points and ideas. I draw a rough map of the area so that I can keep track of where I am. However the main thing is to enjoy the writing and don't make it a chore.

 

[Harpo]

 

[ColGray]

Anyone else use improv rules with writing?

What i mean by that is, whatever ideas i have, whatever things i've put into the mental pile of, I want to include this, none of that exists until it is on the page--but the moment it is on the page, it exists and it is real for every character (unless, intentionally, no, it isn't real/for everyone). I found this to be a really freeing way of writing because I was only beholden to making the scene or story that actually existed on the page, rather than the one I thought I might make. It kind of forced me to make the world as it actually exists, not as I thought it might/should outside of the actual story.

That said, it was a nightmare for consistency until I started keeping a second document that is simply defined things (Characters, places, slang, politics, magic/science, etc.) and that made everything work.

I recently read the Story Grid for editing and planning and really liked that. I've tried the Foolscap method for planning things out for something new and have found I'm utterly stifled.

 

[Lacedaemonian]

I have only ever completed one short story, so perhaps my technique is only instructive from the point of view of what not to do.

1. I spend an inordinate amount of time creating the central characters in my head. Their back stories and aesthetic are secondary in this process. What I truly try to arrive at, is an understanding of these characters on a spiritual/philosophical level. For me, this seems important because the overarching theme in my writing (poetry, prose, social media blather) is various manifestations of existential crisis. When I actually write anything substantial (which is rare) the characters not only have to survive/succeed against key events but they are also shaped by questions of human loneliness, futility and sacrifice.
2. In recent years I have only created one world and all of my stories are set here. I would rather one complete (in my head) world than having to world build with each story.
3. I feel like my plot building is my greatest weakness which invariably hampers my writing output. As much as I like to write with spontaneity (see Kerouac), I think I need to decide on a sufficient number of key plots to flow between.

 

[THX1138]

I have the same problem as @Lacedaemonian third point; plot. But I'm getting better at developing the stories plot.

With my dyslexia, I like to get the main story points/events and dialog down first for that chapter so I don't lose my thought momentum. Many times I have notes and character sheets on hand to keep me on track with my story. Then I'll go back and do the fine details in the descriptions and dialog and change things (while staying to the script.) to let the characters and story write itself. That's my first draft. Not that I have gotten further than that.

In writing flash fiction, I'll have either and event or dialog in mind, then pantser the rest of the story.

If I just wing it and put it out there, it's a nice idea but lacking. If I spend a day or more on it ends up being rather good.

I'm still developing my writing technique but notes and outlines are invaluable to me. Whether written or deeply held in though, very important. Then pantser/improv the rest while looking at it as the reader and author at the same time.

Just and FYI as to the level of my dyslexia, it took me an hour to write this when it should have taken maybe 10 mins?