How do you write?
Posted by Jordan in Technique, Works, tags: drafting, edit, editing, first draft, productivity, revision, revisions, self-editing, works in progress, writing processI have to admit it: I’m one of those writers who doesn’t really do much of anything until I absolutely fall in love with an idea—anything from a character to a scene to a setting. My ideas come from dreams, friends, books, movies, TV, etc. But until an idea really grabs me, I can’t sustain my interest enough to spend three or four months on drafting.
But man, when that idea strikes, it’s hard to make myself do the normal day-to-day, keeping-the-house-clean, being-a-mom stuff. All I want to do is write, and yet no matter how fast I write (my record is 5000 words in a day), it’s not fast enough. The rest of the book stretches out in front of me, scenes and lines and snippets that threaten to slip away before I can get there. So I race on.
An idea struck three weeks ago. So far, I’ve gotten down almost 23,000 words. (Woot! Check out my progress bar in the sidebar.) I’m excited to be drafting again (first time since April), and if I finish the draft by October 21, I’ll have drafted three books in a year. That’s pretty cool.
It’s interesting how different each book is, you know? Not just plot-wise or character-wise (although these three books have the same hero/heroine), but process-wise.
This time around, I’ve accepted that what I like to get in there are people, action, dialogue and plot twists. Cool. On my last MS, I tried to get everything in there on the first draft—sensory details, settings, character descriptions, etc. etc. This time, I’m embracing my favorite parts—I mean, I’ll put in the other stuff as needed, but if a scene is all dialogue/action, and it takes place in a vacuum, I’m not going to cry about it in this draft.
For me, that’s stuff I can add later, in each layer of editing. In fact, I’m taking this week off drafting to go back to the first MS I wrote during this year to add in more of those descriptions and sensory information, since the second half of the book is rather bereft of those (silly me, thinking all the character and setting descriptions were established in the first half, and we wouldn’t need anymore after that!).
How about you? What inspires you? Do you try to get everything in one draft—and if not, what do you leave out to add in later?
This week is probably going to be a bit of a catch-all week as I try to get things done between editing bouts and housecleaning—and, of course, working on the PDF from our website series. But next week, we’ll start another new and awesome series. I think 
.
Photo credits: matches—Kicki; inspire—Mark Brannan
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I’m trying to teach myself to write more often even when inspiration HASN’T struck me…
I was trying to do that—I spent weeks planning and plotting and sketching out characters, trying to get under their skin, trying to get resolution for them—and then I got this idea.
When I get an idea, I just write it down immediately. If I’m out, I write it on a piece of paper or try to memorise it. My ideas come easy and I have too many in my head most of the time. Once I get a story idea, I start writing and keep going till I finish, then go back and add more emotion to the characters.
I only sleep a few hours and write through the night. When the book is finished, I edit, check for mistakes and add things that pop into my head along the way. I chop out anything that doesn’t move the story along, but this part is hard for me. Sometimes, I wait till the final edit to chop out my favourite parts.
When I’m writing, housework goes out the window and people complain that I don’t answer the phone. I’m afraid that my family get a little neglected when it comes to the final edit. I shut myself in my office with the door closed.
I’m happy today because I’ve just completed another Molly Gumnut Adventure book and I’m down to my final edit. (I have the next one already started though, so there won’t be any rest.) But at least now I have the time to go blogging and tweeting again. I’ve been slack in that department because I just had to finish that book. It ended up too big for a chapter book and now it’s a ‘Young MG’ instead. (It’s 26,000 words instead of 10,000.) Ooops, I got carried away, but I don’t want to cut anymore. I’ve already chopped 5,000 words.
I write what I call a “detailed outline” of my story. This happens, then this happens, etc.
I’m thinking of trying to get a bit more detailed in future drafts, and do more pre-plotting. I wind up having to do too much editing.
Maybe you should do a series on plotting
When I get an idea, I just start writing and the plot happens along the way. Whenever I plan the ending, it turns out entirely different. Hehe. I entertain myself along the way because I never know what my characters are going to do next. I tried a ‘detailed outline’ once, but it didn’t work for me. I love surprises.
I do try to get everything in there. I always make the mistake of trying to write it well, perfect, from the first draft. I am a big cutter and heartless when it comes to editing, so I am afraid sometimes that I might just cut everything out, if it’s all that bad in the first draft.
@Iapetus—No fair peeking!
@Lori—I end up cutting scenes, but adding detail. My word count tends to grow during editing, then once I’ve tried just about everything, I’ll cut some more stuff out and trim the words. (I went up 12,000 words in the edits, and I’ve lost 3000 of those now.)
@Trisha—Jealous! I’d love to write through the night, but probably wouldn’t make my family very happy with a grumpy mom. Can’t convince the kids to sleep in just because I had to get that scene down (though I’m trying!).
I’m excited for you!
When I’m drafting, I don’t worry about leaving stuff out or in. I just plain write. Write, write, write. If the scene comes alive with all its delicious details, I write them. But if it doesn’t, I don’t spend precious brain cells trying to create the scene. I just dash it down and move on. Sometimes an idea for fleshing out a previous scene will strike me and I’ll go back to fill it in, but that’s rare. Usually when I’m in first-draft-mode, it’s onward, ever onward.
I LOVE drafting. It’s exhilarating. And three times in one year? Joyful!
@Ali—thanks! For some reason I felt like I wasn’t prolific enough because I waited for inspiration to strike (and have been slaving over edits for so long!).
The sensory stuff usually gets left out of my early drafts. My goal is just to get the story out. And if it becomes obvious that something about the character isn’t working, I’ll change it midstream (twelve-year-olds become sixteen-year-olds halfway through – that kind of thing) and then fix it up in the rewrites.
Good job on your writing. It’s always so satisfying to get the words OUT!
I’m like you in that when an idea is flowing, all I want to do is write. That’s how I am now. I’m a couple chapters away from finishing my current novel, and I feel as though the best part of my day are those couple hours first thing in the morning that are mine to write. I even got about three hours of sleep last night and still got up at 5 to write.
I’m writing this novel much faster than my last, and I do find that I’m skipping over some of the details to just get the story down. After I’ve finished writing, I think of these details I can go and add in, so I make notes and add them the next day.
Three drafts in a year! Wow! I’m impressed.