My Writing Process
When I first started writing, I didn’t have a process of any kind. I just wanted to write and continued to do that. Editing wasn’t really a thing I knew how to do, and I always wanted to share my stories with my friends for their approval. I carried around a notebook with me everywhere I go to write down any ideas that pop into my head. (I still do this, but I have a notes app on my phone for general ideas and the multiple physical notebooks for each of my series so I can keep things organized.)
Writing my first book gave me so much insight to the fact that I needed a process. If I wanted to become a successful writer and publish one book a year, I needed to figure out something that worked well for me. I started by learning about other authors process and discovered two different types of writing styles: planners and pantsers.
Planner vs. Pantser
A planner is someone that has everything figured out. They outline their book, have the world building and character creation complete before even starting writing their book. I saw a couple examples of this and I couldn’t find a way that made sense to do it this way.
A pantser is someone who just starts writing and figures everything out along the way. This is how I had always written. It didn’t make sense to plan everything scene by scene and knowing what happens from start to finish. I liked to just start with it and learn about the world and characters like my readers would.
However, being a pantser didn’t help me write books quickly. I wanted to find a way in between these two so that I could still get into the writing without getting boggled down by planning or feeling the absolute need to follow that plan. I still call myself a pantser, but one that plans out what she can see.
My Writing Old Style
Before I start writing, I make sure I have three things:
My main character with general character development and how I want him/her to look.
The inciting incident, so I know how I am starting.
A general idea of the world that I am working with.
All of these things are subject to change, but this is the basics of what I need to start writing. In a urban fantasy book, like Perfidious, I started with a large overview of what I wanted to happen, four of the character I wanted, and the world of Perfidious. I didn’t have a plan past that, and it took me almost 7 years to write the first book of this trilogy.
Finding Something In The Middle
Once I published that book, I needed to add more information to my list of requirements before I started a book. I wanted more of a plan. Not as large or detailed as a “planner” would, but I needed certain points to propel my story forward. In Deceptions, I sectioned my book into three parts. I had a rough concept of the beginning, the middle, and the end. As I was writing, I came up with ideas of scenes that I wanted to use eventually, and having this beginning-middle-end, I was able to insert it into the story line. Then, I could ask myself “Now how do I get there?” which helped me propel the story forward.
This was a huge help with writing. I wrote this book in less than 8 months.
For Relinquish, the third book in the Perfidious series, I tried this concept again. Somehow it actually worked against me. I had to throw away some of the scenes I had originally added. The hardest part of this was learning that it was okay. There were a few times were I needed to allow my pantser brain to take over and just write it out instead of planning it out. And that was okay.
I wrote that book in less than 5 months.
My Writing Style Today
I’m sure my writing process will change with every book, but so far it is this:
Stage 1 - Determine main characters and their roles for the story.
Some people have told me that it can work against you when you start with a character first. I have never started working on a story any other way. Usually my ideas come from creating a character, usually just simple physical characteristics. I determine who her family consists of, who her friends are, and what her overall attitude is.
Stage 2 - Draw a concept of the world with rules and boundaries that will be tested.
After I started the rough draft of the main characters, I start with the world. I start with where they would be at the beginning of the story and work my way out from there. While looking at how the world looks in the present of the story, I also look at how it got that way. the history of the world I am creating is super important. An editor once told me “You have to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going” and knowing the history can help determine where your story is headed. Drawing a concept of the world include determining magic systems, rules, and boundaries that can or cannot be tested. Usually I find a rule or boundary that I can break or push as an inciting incident.
Stage 3 - Mind map ideas for beginning, middle, and end.
This stage is about letting my mind come up with what if scenarios based on the above details. For a first book in a series, I could come up with a lot of events and only use half of them. For the next series I am working on, I came up with probably about 10-15 events that could happen within the story. I wrote them all down in a notebook (I also have a separate notebook for each series so that I can keep them all together and not go back and forth.) However, half of them will have to be spread out between books 1, 2 and 3. Not all of them would make sense if I had them in the first book.
Stage 4 - Start Writing.
Sometimes this stage might move around. It could be stage 1, 2, 3, or 4. If it happens before stages 1-3, then I usually don’t get too far, maybe only ten or so pages. Sometimes it helps to get my initial thought down before I can really create the characters or world concept.
Stage 5 - Continue to develop and writing down all ideas.
As I write, I continue to develop character sheets (a document of questions and answers for each character) and building the world with its rules. Things are subject to change from my original ideas and I make sure to continue to write down all of my ideas in the notebook I had for the series. While writing, I also make sure to read over what I had originally wrote.
As I get closer to the end, I start working on my editing process. Click here to see how the process continues.
