Hey, look! It’s my 200th post. Ah, what would we do without nice, big, round numbers to celebrate things. In honor of this auspicious number, I thought I’d write about the process I use to write stuff besides blog posts. The timing is good as well as I just finished revising a story I’m doing for a contest on behalf of the Lupus Alliance of America. And, lucky you will see the fruits of my labor in a day or two. But first, take a look at the contest, if nothing else to see what cool things they are doing and then drink in that picture. That’s what the story is based on.
Before I really get rolling here, I want to mention that this is basically the process for me and me alone. Other writers likely have far different ideas and methods they use. It’s really the nature of writing itself, that there are techniques you can learn but to put something actually on paper or screen, it’s going to be different for everyone. Different strokes, as they say. With that said, here it is:
With all writers, every story starts with a kernel of an idea. It could be something visual or a snippet of conversation overheard. It’s difficult to say because even for me it varies. For years I have carried around a number of small notebooks which have little ideas and thoughts scribbled down, either from dreams or someone or something I saw. Most of the time, those little ideas sprout from anywhere to a few days to years. Some will never make it into any piece of writing but serve as compost for the seeds of stories that do.
In the case of the story I wrote for the contest, it was that picture. It did compelled me to write a story about it. The ideas came quickly, but apart from jotting down a thought or two, I didn’t start writing the story until later. I needed that time for the idea to grow. In fact, for this particular story, I was torn on which way I could go with it. On one hand, I had a valid idea which revolved around a chunk of what I thought brilliant dialogue in my head. The other was based on some old gaming experiences I had, parlayed into a humorous confrontation. The dialogue won out this time as it germinated into a stronger story for me. I’ll likely write the other story though, just as a fun exercise.
With the idea in place, this is where I would usually work on either theme or character. This is dependent upon what I came up with in the previous idea phase. If I had a good character I wanted to write around, I’d work up some themes or conflicts to build the story. If the theme came first, I’d see if I could draw up a good character to fit. However, it is infinitely easier for me to have a character first and then put them into a situation rather than the other way around. It’s far simpler for me to find character motivation rather than a nicely rounded character to fit my chosen theme. For this story, Scalzi and Wheaton were the characters and getting a sense of them was a step I didn’t have to fake too badly. Finding a fun story for them wasn’t too bad, although I’ll get into the difficulties shortly.
At this point, I’ll usually write what’s foremost on my mind about the story. My motivation is to get stuff on paper, even if it’s utter shit. Shitty writing can be fixed in revision but it’s infinitely difficult to revise a blank page. For this story, I worked on the second paragraph which was the character describing the background.
This particular time, writing a descriptive passage first was a shift for me as I feel that description is not the easiest thing for me. It takes time and concentration. In fact, it took me nearly three hours to work on this one paragraph consisting of only seven sentences. Two good things that worked this time about this paragraph: the first is that I got a tough piece of writing out of the way. Secondly, by working so hard at it, I didn’t have to do much revision to that particular piece in the end.
With a good descriptive piece done, I wrote what came into my head, no matter if it made sense or not. With this free writing, it would consist of the bulk of the story and pushed my word count to around 1200 words. I had to be careful of the word count as the stories could only be between 400-2000 words. With the way the writing was going and a rough guess from my first paragraph, I had thought the final product would be right around 1200. With this done, all I needed now was a beginning and an end.
Yes, you read that correctly. When I write short stories, I write the middle first with occasionally an ending. Beginnings are often the last part I write. This particular time, I labored on where to stop the piece and settled for a vague ending. The beginning was actually pieced together from bits of the middle moved around and then almost completely rewrote in the final. I had this roughshod work, no where near ready for reading by others. I showed it to my wife for a little feedback. She caught some things I missed and pointed out some errors.
I also asked about what to do about the beginning and this is where feedback gets funny. I ask for these things, but more often that not, the people who I ask about structural parts of the story and their advice, I almost never take that advice. But the feedback serves me well as it gets my mind moving in different ways and once my mind is in that different gear, the problems become easier to solve.
With all of this done, it’s time for revision. I check the dialogue, make sure that it has a certain flow to it, make sure I didn’t forget a crucial part of it or actually give away too much, too early. I tighten up the description, adjust the pacing of the action and really, really work over the beginning and ending so they work seamlessly with the main piece.
There comes a point though where you could work it over and over and over, and if you do that, it will never see the light of day. Once I feel like it is ready, I let it go. You have to eventually let go of your works and let them do whatever they are meant to do. It’s a lot like a plant in the forest; they all start small and might grow into mighty oaks, or they may twist into an unrecognizable, gnarled elm you barely recognize, or they might just be another of the thousand ferns on the ground…or it might not do anything at all. Once you put them out though, they have their own destiny, much of which you have no control over. And that’s how it should be.
So that’s it, in a nutshell. In a couple of days, I’ll post the story and I hope you’ll enjoy it, or not. Whatever, if you do take the time to read it, feel free to comment.
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