How Do You Write Your Story?

Welcome to the fifth post of six in a series, “I Have a Story Idea, Now What?” We’re in the homestretch now, but we’ve hit the biggest, most obvious part of writing a story: writing the story.

Obligatory disclaimer: there is no one true way to write or outline or plot or edit. What I’ll be doing in these posts is talking about how I do things, and why, and what I’ve struggled with. Feel free to use anything that seems useful and ignore the rest.

You may have wondered, back at the beginning of the series, “But Lisa, when do you actually write the story?” The answer is “at various times.” I did mention that this process isn’t a linear one, right? I’ve just had to present things in a linear fashion for the sake of clarity, and going roughly in the order I follow.

Sometimes Often Almost always as part of this entire process for me, I get stuck on something character-related, or I’m not sure how a plot point will work, or sometimes a scene idea just grabs me and I have to go write it right then. And sometimes, I’m omg sick to death of planning and take a break to write.

But sooner or later, I gotta stop “planning” and “outlining” and (my favorite bugaboo) “researching”, and actually write the damn story.

So how to do it? You’ve really got two big choices here: write it in order or don’t write it in order. Writing it in order is like seeing the story as a play. You follow your plan step by step, and let the story unfold. Writing out of order is seeing the story like filming a movie. A scene there a scene here until eventually you’ve told the whole thing.

Both approaches have their advantages. By writing in order, you might get a better feel for how the pacing is working, and how your character development is progressing. By writing out of order, you’re able to jump around based on what appeals to you most on a given day, or follow a particular thread, say, one character’s entire story arc, then weave everything together.

(A NOTE ABOUT INSPIRATION-BASED WRITING: This is directed at people who want to earn a living writing or who want to make a habit of regular writing and/or finishing stories they start. Don’t wait for inspiration. If you have a set writing time, and the only thing holding you back is “but I don’t feel the muuuuuse”, sit your ass down and write anyway.