Freelance
Friday #8
Finding Your Writing Process
Everyone has their own style for writing—not only your
tone and voice, the thing that makes your stories uniquely you, but also
the way you plot, outline, prepare, and complete the physical action of writing
your novel. So for the author who struggles to get writing done, the young
author trying to find their groove, or someone just looking for new methods to
try, this can feel overwhelming. I wanted to offer some ideas and advice—and
debunk some common “tips” that might just offer up roadblocks. Have some tips of
your own? Shout it out in the comments below!
MYTHS:
1) Write what you know. While it’s helpful to have experiences in certain areas
of life, you cannot limit yourself to only what you know. Research. Spend time
studying what you don’t know, or creating what does not yet exist.
Imagine if most of our most influential writers only wrote what they knew! Brandon
Sanderson, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Lucas…well,
if you’re a spec-fic or suspense fan, you get the gist. I don’t think God calls
us to write what we know, either. God promises to equip us and prepare us for
where He sends us, not the other way around. So by all means, if you feel out
of your league with what you’re writing, but you feel led to write? Know that
you can study, learn, research, create, brainstorm, Pinterest, and pray through
the creative process.
2) Write as much as possible—or only a certain amount.
I see a lot of people who pressure writers to write often and publish quickly
because the more books are out on the market, the more money they’ll make. Conversely,
I see folks criticize authors for writing a lot. And this is a process that is uniquely
yours to answer. I’ve written and published books monthly, and other times,
it was a struggle to write a book in a year, so I’ve been on both sides of the
discussion and I can honestly say: the best way to find your own pace is to
experiment. If writing three chapters a day is small potatoes and you can keep
going, go for it. If writing three chapters takes three months, go for it. But
you’ll never know quite what you’re capable of until you try.
My personal best for this year is ten chapters in a
day (roughly 8500 words because I underwrite), and a few years ago, I wrote 10k
words in a day once for a challenge and deeply regretted it for about a week afterward
because my brain was seriously fried. When I’m in the drafting process, I try
to limit myself to two chapters per day because I don’t have to sacrifice
creative energy, I get work done, and I’m looking forward to writing the next
day. That is the balance you need to seek out when you’re writing. Do
you enjoy it, or is it a major chore? Do you feel a sense of accomplishment,
and can you stick to your own publishing timeline without feeling stressed?
Stress and pressure kill good books and make them fall flat, and that’s the
last thing you want.
3) You have to follow certain fads, be a plotter, be a
pantser, etc. etc. to succeed.
Guess what? Oftentimes, writers will end up using a
mix of all of the above as they write. A plotter may need to adjust course, and
someone who flies by the seat of their pants will still need a plan of action
in why certain things must happen in the book. You also don’t need to read all
of the craft books in the world and follow them to a T. Oftentimes, they’ll
offer differing advice—so my advice is to definitely read books on the
craft, but don’t limit yourself to what one specific person tells you to do. Personally,
I read all of the books my college professors told me I had to in order to become
a decent author, and it stifled my creativity horribly because they all
followed a stiff order that didn’t work well for me. But I read Save the
Cat! Writes a Novel and found out that most of the books I’d written beforehand
actually followed Save the Cat! beat sheets without me even knowing it;
it just allowed me to better understand my own process to simplify the plotting
process. (And it taught me how to not despise the outlining process,
since I came out of school very sour to the idea.) So do you see how important
it is to experiment, read wide, and not limit yourself to someone else’s guidance?
4) You have to write in chronological order.
Nope! Do you remember in standardized tests in school?
The instructions say that if a problem is taking too long to solve, to work
ahead and then circle back to that problem if you have time left. The same
logic applies in writing, and let me tell you, it helps writer’s block so much.
You can write the ending first, the middle first, the beginning first—whatever works
for you. I wrote The Lady of Lanaria in reverse order—last, middle, first—and
other times, I’ve written the middle first, then the beginning, and then the ending.
For my devotionals, I typically work start-to-finish unless I have a solid outline
that tells me where the building blocks need to go, since each day builds up
from the last.
Allow your creative process to be flexible based on
the idea you’re working on. Keep a worksheet with your foreshadowing and other details
so you don’t get lost in the process or confused, but allow yourself to be
flexible. If you’re hung up on a particular scene, slap a placeholder in there
and keep going with the aftermath. Creativity is holding your personal balance
between order and chaos. Chances are, even if you plot and outline to the ends
of the earth, you’ll still find situations where you have to stray from your
plan. (A lot like real life, honestly.) And if you wing it, you’ll still need
some level of order to tell a good story. For Chasing the Lutetia Light,
I didn’t know what my first chapter should even talk about until I had written
the epilogue—and I got so wrapped up over the first chapter that I almost trashed
the whole project. But then I wrote a chapter somewhere late in the beginning
of the book, where the two main characters first meet, and I knew their story
had to be told no matter what. That’s the key that will encourage you as you find
your balance: finding out why your story has to be told no matter what.
NOW for some tips:
1) Experiment for one month. If you think you’re a
plotter but you’re struggling to get past a plot point in your outline, try
freewriting. It doesn’t have to be in your specific project. Write a short
story where your characters are thrown into something terrible—an accident, a
loss, or maybe it’s something unbelievably good. Google writing prompts
to get a head-start. Try to put yourself in your characters’ shoes and see how
they react, viscerally, to this situation. The purpose of this experiment is to
free up your mind from the block you’re currently trying to get around. And you
might find out a few things about your own writing process and your characters
in the process! If you think you’re a pantser but you can’t get the story going
somewhere logical, try writing down what has to happen in a stream-of-consciousness
type of exercise. For example, “Character A has to go on this journey, where they
find Character B. What’s the problem besides the journey?” (In Save
the Cat!, that’s called the B story.) Oftentimes, you might find deeper
layers to your characters and the why behind their motivation.
2) If you’re dreading writing…try a few fun exercises.
Try freewriting. Try not writing at all for a few days, because you might come
back refreshed. If that still isn’t working, sit down at the computer (or
notebook) and write one sentence. That’s all. If you’re driven nuts because you
want to get back to it, good! Wait until tomorrow and then get after it. Oftentimes,
the dread comes from a looming deadline, uncertainty, or self-sabotage. Take a
few minutes a day to do a personal inventory and pray on it. Why are you
feeling this dread? What can you change to make it less of a chore? What can
you change to make writing this week more fun? Learn from those struggles, and even
think about keeping a journal with that inventory every day, alongside your
victories for the day, and see if you notice any patterns emerging. That might
help you recognize and combat issues like self-sabotage or prepare yourself
when things like family problems, personal struggles, etc. arise that affect
your writing habits.
3) If you aren’t sure where to start? Well, you
clearly want to start. Write down WHY. Why do you have this story on
your heart? What themes are you passionate about? What tropes are your
favorite? Do you have a particular scene in your head that you just can’t get
rid of? Write it out even if you don’t have a clue where it’s going. Save it.
Chances are, writing that down will help you derive certain themes, character
tics, and backgrounds for the rest of the story. The biggest hurdle is starting.
4) Be willing to change course as you mature and as
your life changes.
My writing habits look nothing like they did when I
started seriously writing and publishing back in 2015/2016. And sometimes, my
writing process for one book is completely different for the very next one I
write. That ability to flex and change course is crucial as you work on your projects,
no matter whether you write fifty books in a year (if you’re writing that much…please
share all of your tips below and possibly your optometrist’s office as well) or
if you’re writing one book every three years. The most important thing you can
do as a writer, or in any area of life, is to learn, grow, and mature. Don’t be
afraid to hold onto tricks that work well for you, but don’t be afraid to let
go of them if it’s not working for one particular project. If you’re struggling to meet your own deadline
as an indie author, it is completely okay to reassess and update readers if you
need to push back a release date.
When it comes down to it, you’re serving God with the
stories you write, and you’re serving your readers as well. Allowing yourself
some extra time to get it right, if that’s what is needed, is perfectly fine.
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