A Writing Post
I was talking with my pal, Scott Andrews, about his writing process and he laid out a pretty clear methodology to his process. And when I say "pretty clear" I mean "jaw-droppingly lucid and impressive" so much so that I feel like a poop flinging monkey by comparison (okay, more like poop flinging monkey than's usual for me... how's that for honesty?) Anyways it got me thinking a lot about my own process and so without further adieu I give you this ramble.
Phase 1: THE NOTION
My default setting, I generally have a number of competing notions running around my skull at any one time. The notion is any idea, a character glimpse, an image, anything. Sometimes it’ll be a fact from a book I read. My pirate story, SKILLET & SABER, started with an idea: pirates and baking. Then I started looking up stuff on the ‘net and found a recipe for eating your own boot leather as recorded by a shipwrecked crewman. This stuff starts percolating. I might shift my reading or start building an image file from stuff online. I tend to need imagery. (There are also a few pictures that serve as notions for stories.) But remember, this is a default setting and there are normally anywhere to three to half a dozen competing notions in my skull. This leads me to Phase 2. (Time span for all this: 3 Days to 4 Weeks.)
Phase 2: THE FIVE-STEP PROGRAM
This is a relatively recent addition to my tool-kit that got its test during the story-a-week challenge. By now I have all this junk boiling: bits of character, factoids, pictures, and ideas. I start to run with it and see if I can make it into a simple outline of declarative stuff. What happens? Who does it? What does it mean? This gives me a simple path to follow, and what winds up happening is one of those boiling notions rises above the pile. If I can think of plot steps 1-5 and be excited about 1-3, then I go to Phase 3. This step is helping me get over my Slow Train Ride tendencies, and this framework is less about outlining the plot than outlining the flow of information: what needs to be known and in what order for the story to have impact. (This takes about 1 Day to 3 Weeks.)
Phase 2.5: THE PLOT TALK
I’m separating this out even though I would have been doing this throughout Phases 2 and 3. For me the Plot Talk is not so much a way to find the story as a means to keep it from closing down. I’ll write in directions, get stuck, go back to a plot talk, come up with a solution, and then rewrite. So consider the plot talk like WD-40. Another lubricant would be the reading and watching I do while I have my teeth in a story. Books get stacked into piles on the floor.
Phase 3: THE WRITING
Okay by now I have a framework of where I want the story to go. I have a setting I’m jazzed about, a character to be abused by events, and I normally have a couple of rules I try to keep in mind. One rule for short stories is that all characters who will appear in this story must be either present in the first scene, mentioned, or hinted at. (Character can also mean setting element.) This keeps the story from getting overpopulated with named people and cuts down on the bloat of exposition. Of course any rule I come up with will be loose enough that I have no problem breaking it if I have to. The first 500 words are always the hardest, next 500 the second hardest, but if I make it to 1000 and I’m still excited then I figure things are a go. I’ll also use placeholders while I’m working, just a simple note like [NEEDS MORE DETAIL] or [MAKE WEIRDER] or [WHY?]. Often I’ll end a days writing with a bunch of questions: What next? Why did she do this? Who did he hope to see? The whole time I’m trying to hone in on the Steps 4 and 5 and hammer them out. Once in a while I’ll have a very concrete image of the ending and I’ll put that down and write towards it. Often I’ll think of something better for a finish while writing and start a new draft. On average, I go through 3 versions of a story until I hone in on a place where I am satisfied and there are no more placeholders. At which point I let people crat all over it. (Time 3 Days to 3 Weeks -- if I’m not done with the draft by week 3, the story for all intents and purposes is stillborn. But this doesn’t happen often because I generally wind up with something by week 2 that has a beginning, middle, and end.)
Phase 4: THE CRATTING
My crit group is great with a wide range of interests and reading habits. They don’t let me get away with shit. I also get more out of the face-to-face dialog and the notes I take on the meeting than I do with the notes put on the manuscript. If my draft is still standing despite the bullet holes Phase 5 gets easier.
Phase 5: REWRITING
Here’s where my process needs improvement. Depending on how my story fared in the cratting this stage can be hellish to merely purgatorian. I’ve noticed the process to be easier if I read a writing book at the same time. My VENICE story was vastly improved by reading STRUNK & WHITE in between versions. I’ll also try to get one more crit in. boonofdoom has been great for putting up with me doing rolling crits with him throughout the day. This is where we’ll swap stories in the morning, plot talk them in early afternoon citing those places where there are problems, rewrite in the late afternoon, swap drafts again in the evening and comment the following morning. Okay -- we have done this once and I sold SKILLET & SABER because of it in my opinion. At this point, I start sending the story out.
Remember this is a refinement of my process and how I think it’s worked best for me. All the stories I’ve been happy with have adhered closer to this framework than not. Much of this is hindsight is 20/20.
Dang, this is long. Sorry. My intention is multi-parted in detailing all of this.
I. I want to catalog the evidence on hand from what I have written and how I have written. This analysis is based upon review of what I have done and gives me the chance to see how things have worked or failed in the past.
II. I want to form a hypothesis of how I work and then I want to test it. My hypothesis at this time is basically it would be wise to follow the above phases. Simple as that. Possibly my process will not change over time but only become refined.
III. To test the hypothesis I propose to RetCon old stories. I will take a story in need of rewriting and send them back to Phases 1 and 2. To do this I will outline the plot points present in the drafts as written to see which of them will spark.
Phase 1: THE NOTION
My default setting, I generally have a number of competing notions running around my skull at any one time. The notion is any idea, a character glimpse, an image, anything. Sometimes it’ll be a fact from a book I read. My pirate story, SKILLET & SABER, started with an idea: pirates and baking. Then I started looking up stuff on the ‘net and found a recipe for eating your own boot leather as recorded by a shipwrecked crewman. This stuff starts percolating. I might shift my reading or start building an image file from stuff online. I tend to need imagery. (There are also a few pictures that serve as notions for stories.) But remember, this is a default setting and there are normally anywhere to three to half a dozen competing notions in my skull. This leads me to Phase 2. (Time span for all this: 3 Days to 4 Weeks.)
Phase 2: THE FIVE-STEP PROGRAM
This is a relatively recent addition to my tool-kit that got its test during the story-a-week challenge. By now I have all this junk boiling: bits of character, factoids, pictures, and ideas. I start to run with it and see if I can make it into a simple outline of declarative stuff. What happens? Who does it? What does it mean? This gives me a simple path to follow, and what winds up happening is one of those boiling notions rises above the pile. If I can think of plot steps 1-5 and be excited about 1-3, then I go to Phase 3. This step is helping me get over my Slow Train Ride tendencies, and this framework is less about outlining the plot than outlining the flow of information: what needs to be known and in what order for the story to have impact. (This takes about 1 Day to 3 Weeks.)
Phase 2.5: THE PLOT TALK
I’m separating this out even though I would have been doing this throughout Phases 2 and 3. For me the Plot Talk is not so much a way to find the story as a means to keep it from closing down. I’ll write in directions, get stuck, go back to a plot talk, come up with a solution, and then rewrite. So consider the plot talk like WD-40. Another lubricant would be the reading and watching I do while I have my teeth in a story. Books get stacked into piles on the floor.
Phase 3: THE WRITING
Okay by now I have a framework of where I want the story to go. I have a setting I’m jazzed about, a character to be abused by events, and I normally have a couple of rules I try to keep in mind. One rule for short stories is that all characters who will appear in this story must be either present in the first scene, mentioned, or hinted at. (Character can also mean setting element.) This keeps the story from getting overpopulated with named people and cuts down on the bloat of exposition. Of course any rule I come up with will be loose enough that I have no problem breaking it if I have to. The first 500 words are always the hardest, next 500 the second hardest, but if I make it to 1000 and I’m still excited then I figure things are a go. I’ll also use placeholders while I’m working, just a simple note like [NEEDS MORE DETAIL] or [MAKE WEIRDER] or [WHY?]. Often I’ll end a days writing with a bunch of questions: What next? Why did she do this? Who did he hope to see? The whole time I’m trying to hone in on the Steps 4 and 5 and hammer them out. Once in a while I’ll have a very concrete image of the ending and I’ll put that down and write towards it. Often I’ll think of something better for a finish while writing and start a new draft. On average, I go through 3 versions of a story until I hone in on a place where I am satisfied and there are no more placeholders. At which point I let people crat all over it. (Time 3 Days to 3 Weeks -- if I’m not done with the draft by week 3, the story for all intents and purposes is stillborn. But this doesn’t happen often because I generally wind up with something by week 2 that has a beginning, middle, and end.)
Phase 4: THE CRATTING
My crit group is great with a wide range of interests and reading habits. They don’t let me get away with shit. I also get more out of the face-to-face dialog and the notes I take on the meeting than I do with the notes put on the manuscript. If my draft is still standing despite the bullet holes Phase 5 gets easier.
Phase 5: REWRITING
Here’s where my process needs improvement. Depending on how my story fared in the cratting this stage can be hellish to merely purgatorian. I’ve noticed the process to be easier if I read a writing book at the same time. My VENICE story was vastly improved by reading STRUNK & WHITE in between versions. I’ll also try to get one more crit in. boonofdoom has been great for putting up with me doing rolling crits with him throughout the day. This is where we’ll swap stories in the morning, plot talk them in early afternoon citing those places where there are problems, rewrite in the late afternoon, swap drafts again in the evening and comment the following morning. Okay -- we have done this once and I sold SKILLET & SABER because of it in my opinion. At this point, I start sending the story out.
Remember this is a refinement of my process and how I think it’s worked best for me. All the stories I’ve been happy with have adhered closer to this framework than not. Much of this is hindsight is 20/20.
Dang, this is long. Sorry. My intention is multi-parted in detailing all of this.
I. I want to catalog the evidence on hand from what I have written and how I have written. This analysis is based upon review of what I have done and gives me the chance to see how things have worked or failed in the past.
II. I want to form a hypothesis of how I work and then I want to test it. My hypothesis at this time is basically it would be wise to follow the above phases. Simple as that. Possibly my process will not change over time but only become refined.
III. To test the hypothesis I propose to RetCon old stories. I will take a story in need of rewriting and send them back to Phases 1 and 2. To do this I will outline the plot points present in the drafts as written to see which of them will spark.