The Process

One question I get asked a lot (mainly by other writers) is: "what's your process?"

Every writer has a slightly different approach, except for a few who have an extremely different approach, such as receiving signals directly from outer space.

Some, for example, begin at the beginning and write straight through until they reach the end, then go back to the beginning again and start over, cleaning up the manuscript in the same order.

Others edit as they go, obsessively reworking each passage until it's close to perfect before moving on.

Some try to hit a certain page count per day. (I have a friend who is a successful and prolific novelist and she does this. She sits in a coffee shop and sets a page quota for the session.)

Some write improvisationally; they couldn't tell you where the story is going to go next.

Others create a well-defined plot structure and stick to it strictly, often starting with the resolution and then writing backwards. (I understand a lot of mysteries are, by necessity, assembled this way.)

My own process goes like this:

First, I create a one-sentence summary of the entire story. This helps get my mind focused on the project.

Second, I write one short paragraph that briefly encapsulates the action of each chapter.

Next, I begin expanding those chapter-paragraphs internally. One paragraph becomes three, three paragraphs become ten pages, ten pages become twenty pages. I do not do this in any particular sequence. As I do research and just let the ideas swirl freely, I get random bursts of inspiration, e.g., "this could go in chapter eight" or "what a perfect little detail to throw into chapter three somewhere." The dialog usually comes very fast and natural for me during this stage, but it's in isolated, stand-alone blasts.

After that comes the hardest part: the "Connect-the-dots" phase. All the pieces are there; I have to bridge the many gaps and replace cheats such as [insert physical description of thing] with an actual physical description. I have to exert the most effort where connecting the dots means navigating a curve or going around a corner. In my opinion and experience, a seamless transition is one of the hardest things to pull off well in fiction writing. It's like movie makeup or special effects: if you do it right, no one notices. This "Connect-the-Dots" phase takes by far the most time and is the least fun.

After all of the chapters have reached the point where you can read them and they make sense with no glaring holes, then I go back to the beginning and embark upon the task of editing, revising, proofreading and rewriting, rewriting, rewriting.

It's usually not until the very last round of rewrites, when I am making the smallest fine-tuning adjustments, that the prose really begins to come to life.

I finished my first novel manuscript when I was in high school, and now, several books later, I have found that my process has changed very little. The biggest difference is that I spend more time than ever rewriting.

In reality, writing is a messy activity, and I believe every author does a little bit of everything described above.

"How do you overcome writer's block?" is usually the follow-up question. That's simple: I read. Sometimes I read, take a nap, and then read some more. I am a great believer in the value of naps, and that's not limited to writing.