What is your writing process?

[lonewolf86]

As the title asks, what is your writing process? How do you organize your thoughts and plan your story?

I have some general ideas in my head on how I want my story to go but otherwise I wing it. I often get my ideas while I am at work and have to remember them for later. But generally, I just let my creative juices flow and let them take me where they may. It probably takes me longer to write than most other writers but seems to work for me. While writing I like to listen to some music, sometimes I get distracted and end up watching videos but most of the time it helps lol. If I get stuck on a part of my story, I end up taking a small break and come back to it a bit later. In regards to chapter length, I try to have a minimum of eight pages with no fluff content. I try to catch my errors in grammar and spelling as I go as opposed to waiting until I finish the story. I do end up proofreading the story two or three times before submitting it, sometimes mistakes still manage to slip through.

Lonewolf86

[gutterpupper]

I find it's good to have a notepad with me wherever I go. I could make notes on my phone but I just feel a traditional pen and paper works. Writing it down helps me think about it as I have to think about my idea, able to flesh it out as I write. I date things I wriye and make headers so I can easily see which is which of I have multiple ideas.

I find that when I get ideas they are sometimes not great on their own. But sometimes I'll get another idea and I can merge the two. As long as I have them written down I can reflect and reference back when needed.

[lonewolf86]

I've never thought of writing notes on my phone, think I may start doing that since I almost always have my phone with me.


I've merged ideas a few times throughout my writing too. Taking a couple good ideas on their own and merging them into one great idea sometimes.


Have you ever thought of or actually went back and edited your stories? If so, did you take down the old version and replace with the new or just upload the edited version saying its the new and improved variant?

[Senda]

world building, character making, map building plot outline, plot outline, plot outline, begin

[lonewolf86]

Since my works are fan fics, the world building and character making is already done unless I add in my OC's. Plot outlining is definitely the trickier bit though.

[aka]

I'm very much a planner. I rarely actually end up following the plan once I
start writing (stupid characters taking on a life of their own and reacting in
unexpected ways), but I find that having a plan helps me organize my thoughts
and keep things coherent.

I also tend to (want to) write in a serial-style with several different
plotlines being slowly built up tangentially to my main plot, so planning's very
important. I do the below five things in roughly the given order, there's
definitely a feedback loop between all 5 steps.

1. First I do world building. The more I understand the world my characters live
in, the easier time I have developing them.

2. Next, I develop my characters. I write up little character sheets for my
characters. I shy away from attributes (i.e. Juliana is playful), but rather
describe their background. I find that giving them a history rather than
attributes gives them more room to breath. Basically, I try not to go into
a writing a character with pre-conceived notions of what kind of person they
should be, but rather let their history guide me until I figure out their voice.

3. I figure out what my plot arcs are, both the major and minor ones. These
are usually a paragraph each describing what I want to happen, how I expect
the involved characters to evolve over the course of each arc, that sort of
thing.

4. I plan out the top-level plots for each episode. These are TV Guide
style summaries: one or two sentences that describe the top-level conflict. I
might also include a few notes of which arcs I want to develop in each episode.

5. Finally, I write up a brief outline of the episode I'm about to work on. This
is just some prose describing in general terms what happens in each act.

Finally, I write. The episode outline usually ends up getting trashed almost as
soon as I start writing. The top level plot for the current episode only gets
trashed if things really aren't working. Sometimes, plot arcs will get reworked,
but I rarely do that while writing. That's usually something I do later while
the arcs stew in the back of my mind. My world and character building almost
never get trashed, though they might evolve.

[lonewolf86]

Hey Aka, I think I am going to try your approach for a new story I am planning. This is a story that I really want to improve on my storytelling with. How much do you include in your world building and character sheets? I think I handle my plots alright since I write my future plans out before I forget them. Sometimes I cut scenes from a chapter and then regret it after I post it and start working on the next chapter. Some of these scenes would have had an impact on future chapters. Maybe I need to hold off posting new chapters as soon to prevent this.

[aka]

@lonewolf86 Enough to give my story context. What does that mean? Well, it
depends on the setting.

For example, for Potion Wars I briefly sketched out the history of the
city-states: the fact that the Taironans were relatively (within the past
hundred years or so I think) migrants into the area, the fact that the two
groups were pretty distrustful of each other, and hence tended to have their
own city-states. I also sketched out the tenets of the religion and a few of
its sects, including a few of their myths, a little bit of their organizational
structure, and what their mission is.

For Scarlet Moon, I didn't sketch out a world at all, because it's mostly
modern day America (circa 2016 or so), and that gave me all the context I
needed. I do have a few ideas of the history of Generica, but I haven't
committed them to paper.

For characters, I sketch out broad strokes of their background, for example that
Elise and Carrie from Potion Wars were both abandoned on the steps of the
Matirian Church as infants, and were raised by the sisters, one in particular,
whose name escapes me. I sketched out how and where Roland met Elise and Carrie.

When I'm sketching out a world, I don't really have any particular questions in
mind, beyond molding the history to set the stage for my story.

For characters, I try to figure out enough to answer the following questions:

1. How did each character get to where they are at the start of the story?

For example, I knew that I wanted to have two younger Sisters, Elise and Carrie
at the Matirian Church, with connections to both the Taironans and the city
elite. So I needed to answer the questions:

1. How did these two get involved in the Church?

2. What are their connections to the Taironans and how did they make them? What
are their connections to the elite and how did they make them?

You'll notice that in both of these questions there's a lot of emphasis on
"how." That's how I'm able to get myself to mold the histories of a character,
rather than their attributes.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that it's an iterative process.
Sometimes, I sketch out a history and start writing, but I find myself
struggling with a character's voice. I can't seem to figure out how they'd
react to a given situation, or why they are where they are. When that happens,
I back up and spend some more time fleshing out their history (either on paper
or in my head, depending on how lazy I'm feeling). So for some characters, I may
have a fairly detailed history worked out, but for others broad strokes were all
I needed.

I would discourage you from delaying when you release chapters. Feedback is
important. Plus, getting feedback from people can be a big boost in motivation,
at least for me.

As far as the problem of deleting chapters, I don't know there's a good answer
to that. Personally, I view my stories as always a little bit fluid. I'm not
afraid to go back and tweak (or add) something in an earlier part if it turns
out I need for a later piece. I usually try to avoid changing anything truly
game changing, but I haven't gotten very far into any of my stuff, so who knows.

[lonewolf86]

Thanks for expanding on your process. I started to do some character profiles and basic plot to my new story and your incites are a help. Haven't started world building just yet though.

I agree that feedback is good motivation, sadly there aren't enough people providing any feedback.

I haven't deleted any chapters, just a scene within that at the time I felt was maybe too much or unneeded. Sometimes it's a scene that I have in my head that I planned on including but changed my mind and skipped it. After writing the next chapter I realize that I should have included the scene as it would have set up additional scenes that would have been interesting. Unfortunately here at AOTK, it is more difficult to go back and edit a chapter and reupload it. Plus most people if they read the first version probably won't read the updated version. I'm sure there are some that would but it would be very few.