A Peek at My Writing Process
One of the things I find most interesting to hear about from other writers is their writing process. Mainly because they’re so varied. You have people who can outline an entire book from start to finish—who have to in order to even start it. You have people who make up index cards for each character, listing everything from their eye color to grandparents’ names to major weaknesses. You have people who, if they know the ending of the book too early, become uninterested in it and stop writing. You have people who revise as they go along, and people who wait until the book is finished to revise. So many techniques that can produce great books—and none of them exactly alike. I always feel fascinated and a bit voyeuristic reading or hearing about how another writer writes—kind of like looking into someone’s underwear drawer.
So, I thought I would share a little about my underwear drawer—excuse me—writing process. ( Unfortunately, I always feel a bit odd trying to explain it, because it isn’t one of the clearer processes. Or, at least, I feel like it isn’t, because it doesn’t involve outlining or index cards.) But here goes!
The short explanation of my writing process is that I write by feel. An idea comes to me in some state of completion. Sometimes—like when I was writing The False Princess—I get the main components of the story all at once. Other times it’s just a single character, or a setting, or a bit of an idea that needs to be mulled around for a long time. Eventually, though, I get to the point where I have something that looks like a house in the early stages of construction. You can see the shape of it, and maybe a few rooms have walls, but there’s still a lot of open air. Usually this means that I know my main characters, the central problem of the novel and some of how it will be solved, how the book will open up, and a few high points or scenes and about where they will be in the book. And then I’ll start writing.
Aside from the scaffolding of the story that I mentioned, I often don’t know exactly where the story will go. Or rather, I know where I want it to go, but I don’t know how it will get there. Sometimes I’ll finished a scene one day, knowing that I need to accomplish a certain thing or get to a certain plain in the next scene. But I won’t know how I’ll do that until I sit down and start writing the next day.
In some ways, I love this. There are connections that have come from writing this way that would never have come if I had outlined everything from the first—connections that burst into my brain at exactly the right moment. There are scenes that are a total surprise to me, and so I know they’ll be a surprise to the reader. But other times, it’s downright scary. Sometimes I get to a spot and I have no idea where to go from there, and I have to spend days staring at the computer screen, feeling like I’m completely uncreative and that I’m wasting time. Sometimes I write myself into corners that are really hard to get out of.
Over the years, though, I’ve come to realize that it’s the only way I can write. I can’t outline at the beginning of a project, though I envy people who can. (Probably should have realized this would be a problem in high school, when teachers wanted students to turn in outlines of papers before the actual papers. I always just wrote the paper and then made up the outline from the finished product.) Having to write synopses terrifies me—even though part of me keeps thinking, Just write down something. You can change it later. But I am, I’ve realized, scared of writing down the wrong thing, because I'm afraid it will get stuck in my brain and keep me from seeing the right thing when it’s time. About halfway through a novel, I’ll usually write up a little summary of where things are going, but they’re not usually more than a paragraph or two, and even they change.
Let’s see, other pieces of my process. I don’t rewrite heavily as I go along, but generally wait until the whole thing is finished to start picking apart word choice or making sure I’ve led up to things exactly as I want to. That said, I often get about 30-40 pages into a book and then have to go back and rewrite that from the start—sometimes more extensively than others. (The False Princess started out in third person, before I realized that was totally wrong for that book. Also I wasn't sure for a long time if I wanted to have to go to Treb and meet Aunt Varil or just be catapulted into being Philanatha's assistant.) And I’ll go back and rewrite if I decide to change a major plot point, lest I confuse myself later.
I write in order from start to finish. I can’t leave scenes half-done, even if I have no idea of what to do with them, or write a scene that occurs later in the book than where I am now. I need to lead up to everything just as it would be read, see how it evolves.
I try to write for a few hours a day Monday-Friday. I give myself weekends off, because I need that down time to help things gel. I don’t have a set word count, though I can get a few thousand in on a good day, maybe 500 on a bad day. Sometimes I can’t write because I’m not quite sure where I’m going next, so on those days I tend to mull, trying to figure out where I need to be. Occasionally, I’ll use my writing time for research, but I tend to do more of that on my “off” time. I try to straddle the line between pushing myself on the days when I feel dull and crappy and don’t want to write, and realizing when I don’t feel like writing for a reason. Sometimes I’m just being lazy, and once I get started I get into the flow, but other times part of me is being resistant because the scene I need to write isn’t ready yet. It needs more mulling time. It can sometimes be hard to tell the difference, but I try.
Whew. This has gotten really long, so I’m going to sign off for the moment. But if there are elements about my process that I didn’t touch on, feel free to ask about them!
So, I thought I would share a little about my underwear drawer—excuse me—writing process. ( Unfortunately, I always feel a bit odd trying to explain it, because it isn’t one of the clearer processes. Or, at least, I feel like it isn’t, because it doesn’t involve outlining or index cards.) But here goes!
The short explanation of my writing process is that I write by feel. An idea comes to me in some state of completion. Sometimes—like when I was writing The False Princess—I get the main components of the story all at once. Other times it’s just a single character, or a setting, or a bit of an idea that needs to be mulled around for a long time. Eventually, though, I get to the point where I have something that looks like a house in the early stages of construction. You can see the shape of it, and maybe a few rooms have walls, but there’s still a lot of open air. Usually this means that I know my main characters, the central problem of the novel and some of how it will be solved, how the book will open up, and a few high points or scenes and about where they will be in the book. And then I’ll start writing.
Aside from the scaffolding of the story that I mentioned, I often don’t know exactly where the story will go. Or rather, I know where I want it to go, but I don’t know how it will get there. Sometimes I’ll finished a scene one day, knowing that I need to accomplish a certain thing or get to a certain plain in the next scene. But I won’t know how I’ll do that until I sit down and start writing the next day.
In some ways, I love this. There are connections that have come from writing this way that would never have come if I had outlined everything from the first—connections that burst into my brain at exactly the right moment. There are scenes that are a total surprise to me, and so I know they’ll be a surprise to the reader. But other times, it’s downright scary. Sometimes I get to a spot and I have no idea where to go from there, and I have to spend days staring at the computer screen, feeling like I’m completely uncreative and that I’m wasting time. Sometimes I write myself into corners that are really hard to get out of.
Over the years, though, I’ve come to realize that it’s the only way I can write. I can’t outline at the beginning of a project, though I envy people who can. (Probably should have realized this would be a problem in high school, when teachers wanted students to turn in outlines of papers before the actual papers. I always just wrote the paper and then made up the outline from the finished product.) Having to write synopses terrifies me—even though part of me keeps thinking, Just write down something. You can change it later. But I am, I’ve realized, scared of writing down the wrong thing, because I'm afraid it will get stuck in my brain and keep me from seeing the right thing when it’s time. About halfway through a novel, I’ll usually write up a little summary of where things are going, but they’re not usually more than a paragraph or two, and even they change.
Let’s see, other pieces of my process. I don’t rewrite heavily as I go along, but generally wait until the whole thing is finished to start picking apart word choice or making sure I’ve led up to things exactly as I want to. That said, I often get about 30-40 pages into a book and then have to go back and rewrite that from the start—sometimes more extensively than others. (The False Princess started out in third person, before I realized that was totally wrong for that book. Also I wasn't sure for a long time if I wanted to have to go to Treb and meet Aunt Varil or just be catapulted into being Philanatha's assistant.) And I’ll go back and rewrite if I decide to change a major plot point, lest I confuse myself later.
I write in order from start to finish. I can’t leave scenes half-done, even if I have no idea of what to do with them, or write a scene that occurs later in the book than where I am now. I need to lead up to everything just as it would be read, see how it evolves.
I try to write for a few hours a day Monday-Friday. I give myself weekends off, because I need that down time to help things gel. I don’t have a set word count, though I can get a few thousand in on a good day, maybe 500 on a bad day. Sometimes I can’t write because I’m not quite sure where I’m going next, so on those days I tend to mull, trying to figure out where I need to be. Occasionally, I’ll use my writing time for research, but I tend to do more of that on my “off” time. I try to straddle the line between pushing myself on the days when I feel dull and crappy and don’t want to write, and realizing when I don’t feel like writing for a reason. Sometimes I’m just being lazy, and once I get started I get into the flow, but other times part of me is being resistant because the scene I need to write isn’t ready yet. It needs more mulling time. It can sometimes be hard to tell the difference, but I try.
Whew. This has gotten really long, so I’m going to sign off for the moment. But if there are elements about my process that I didn’t touch on, feel free to ask about them!
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