Your writing process

[aim2plz412]

My writing process:

step 1:

https://media.tenor.com/jh0i6TKjSncAAAAC/vodka-shots.gif

step 2:

https://media.tenor.com/1fgm4-WavtoAAAAC/drinkingunderthetable-crying.gif

step 3:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/EnormousUnderstatedClumber-size_restricted.gif

I'm obviously exaggerating for dramatic effect But it's not that far from the truth.

Truth. Lol

 

[aim2plz412]

This is not sanctioned by any creative writing course, but sometimes I write the beginning first and then the end, and work towards the middle. Or there may be more than one such gap to fill in. I had to do that with the Geek Pride entry, because it got kind of complicated. I had four pages of notes for that, and I had to decide which details to use and which to leave out. Not that it's actually done yet.

I think the important part is to write, something, anything. I have found that a simple stroke of a key, or a scribble of a pen - even if it is incoherent - is a step in the right direction.

Even when nothing is coming together, you at least have found what doesn’t work.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Take ADHD meds in the morning. Go through routine. Spontaneously get two to three new ideas as meds kick in half an hour later. Forget one to two of them before I can write them down. Obsess over remaining idea for next hour; don't actually write anything, just think real, real hard. Maybe write something if I get free time. Discard story until somewhere between three days and three years later. Repeat until same idea won't leave my head for three days in a row. Brain fever seizes me, and I write 4K a day on whatever story it's decided to "really" focus on until I'm done; ignore work if necessary, panic-code to meet deadline. Themes, characters, beginning, and ending may all change during this process.

Edit. Edit. Edit. Submit. Edit. Submit. Read. FUCK! EDIT! Submit again. Wake up at three in the morning to see how it's doing. Obsessively click back and forth between Feed and Works pages to see numbers change. Read it again now that it's up; see three missed typos and a dozen ways I wish I'd slightly changed the phrasing. Fuck! Think I should hold onto the next story longer. Know I won't. Finally pass out again at five.

Wake up, tired and exhilarated, at six-thirty; snooze.

Take ADHD meds.

Since we're not getting paid, if it's that bad, then one needs a new hobby.

If you want high stress and money, drive a taxi, especially in New York. That will make writing for Lit look like a cakewalk.

 

[Phantom300]

I usually have a scene or two in my head and the rest of the story just flows from there, sometimes well, sometimes less well. I will then go back through and add details or backstory as I think is needed. No outlines or planning. Hell, most of the time I have no idea where it goes from there or how it will end, It just goes where the muse take me.

Sometimes the muses go down weird little side stories that make no sense to the overall tale. Sometimes they just ramble on and on and I have to find a point to stop. Every writing experience for me is different.

 

[aim2plz412]

This is not sanctioned by any creative writing course, but sometimes I write the beginning first and then the end, and work towards the middle. Or there may be more than one such gap to fill in. I had to do that with the Geek Pride entry, because it got kind of complicated. I had four pages of notes for that, and I had to decide which details to use and which to leave out. Not that it's actually done yet.

I typically know where I want a narrative to end. It’s like a map: I know that I am traveling from NYC to LA. I know that I am roughly traveling by XYZ interstate, and through ABC town.

What I don’t know is where I am going to get gas? Where will I break down. Who will I meet along the way?

The devil is always in the details.

 

[Zootonius]

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is sit down at the typewriter, cut open a vein, and bleed.”

― Red Smith

 

[gunhilltrain]

My writing process:

step 1:

https://media.tenor.com/jh0i6TKjSncAAAAC/vodka-shots.gif

step 2:

https://media.tenor.com/1fgm4-WavtoAAAAC/drinkingunderthetable-crying.gif

step 3:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/EnormousUnderstatedClumber-size_restricted.gif

I'm obviously exaggerating for dramatic effect But it's not that far from the truth.

Even if you are exaggerating, you are taking this way too seriously. See my comment to NoTalentHack above.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Since we're not getting paid, if it's that bad, then one needs a new hobby.

If you want high stress and money, drive a taxi, especially in New York. That will make writing for Lit look like a cakewalk.

If I wasn’t obsessing over this hobby, I’d just be obsessing over another one. That’s just how ADHD works. At least this one is free and fulfilling.

 

[SimonDoom]

As has been discussed at great length in previous threads, there are plotters and there are pantsers. Some of the authors that have responded to this thread have described themselves as pantsers. They get an idea and just start writing without a clear idea where it will end up. Not me. I like to plot. I get an idea, create a folder, and put two Word documents in it: one for the story and one for the story notes. In the notes document I usually work out the basics of the story, all the main characters and their chief characters, an outline of the plot, and sometimes I come up with key themes I want to write about. I almost always work out the ending before I'm very far along in the story. I often write the ending before I get far along. I like to know where the story will end up so everything I write makes sense in light of the ending.

 

[Phantom300]

As has been discussed at great length in previous threads, there are plotters and there are pantsers. Some of the authors that have responded to this thread have described themselves as pantsers. They get an idea and just start writing without a clear idea where it will end up. Not me. I like to plot. I get an idea, create a folder, and put two Word documents in it: one for the story and one for the story notes. In the notes document I usually work out the basics of the story, all the main characters and their chief characters, an outline of the plot, and sometimes I come up with key themes I want to write about. I almost always work out the ending before I'm very far along in the story. I often write the ending before I get far along. I like to know where the story will end up so everything I write makes sense in light of the ending.

I wish I could do that. I really do.

Ironic thing is in my personal life, I'm a planner. I like scheduling things out and following it. I leave early in case there is traffic or I have to find parking. I set 2 alarms in case one doesn't wake me up. I plan and then usually have a back up plan.

But for some reason, I can't do that when I write. And that so opposite my "IRL" personality.

 

[gunhilltrain]

If I wasn’t obsessing over this hobby, I’d just be obsessing over another one. That’s just how ADHD works. At least this one is free and fulfilling.

Okay, I'll take your word on it. I must have misinterpreted your message.

 

[KeithD]

As has been discussed at great length in previous threads, there are plotters and there are pantsers. Some of the authors that have responded to this thread have described themselves as pantsers. They get an idea and just start writing without a clear idea where it will end up. Not me. I like to plot. I get an idea, create a folder, and put two Word documents in it: one for the story and one for the story notes. In the notes document I usually work out the basics of the story, all the main characters and their chief characters, an outline of the plot, and sometimes I come up with key themes I want to write about. I almost always work out the ending before I'm very far along in the story. I often write the ending before I get far along. I like to know where the story will end up so everything I write makes sense in light of the ending.

There are hybrids. What my muse delivers to me before I write is a plot--often a pretty complex plot. Always more of a provided plot when I start to write than I realized it was. But I rarely do anything like an outline from anything less than a novel-length work (which I do write).

 

[PapaRomantic]

My writing process:


step 3:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/EnormousUnderstatedClumber-size_restricted.gif

I'm obviously exaggerating for dramatic effect But it's not that far from the truth.

Would kind of like to see your fingers do this - might be pretty entertaining!

 

[DrHappy]

My stories tend to be long (+30K words). I don’t have much time for writing, so they tend to take a while to complete. I use the Microsoft One Note app to collect story elements over the course of a year or two. I define an “element” as just a simple idea or dialogue to be included in the story. It may be essential to the story, or it may be just an idea that gives the characters personality or depth. For instance, two people may have careers that require them to know several languages. An element may be “They try to impress each other with their knowledge of languages.” My story lines can be complicated, so some elements may be questions that I need to address, like “How do they get from the restaurant to the airport if they don’t have cars?”

The One Note app allows me to share my notes between my phone and my computer. I may be at work when an element pops into my head, so I’ll use my phone to write it down inside One Note. I do my main writing inside Microsoft Word and use the free version of the Grammarly plug-in for grammar.

I don’t begin writing paragraphs until I have a plot and a story line that I think are interesting, and I have enough elements that give the characters some depth. I will typically have hundreds of elements before I begin writing. I always have a sequence of events and chapters worked out before I start the main writing. Once I start writing, it usually only takes a few weeks to complete the first draft.

 

[Andrew1968]

I think I develop characters first. I’m thinking of the physical and psychological characteristics of female characters first. My females are usually smart and articulate. They’re usually attractive, promiscuous, pleasure hungry and amoral. They’re often times married or they’re sexy single moms. I see my female character in some situation, which implies the existence of other characters. So, my main female character, in a certain state of affairs, generates everyone else. Understanding and explaining how and why they're in that particular situation is the story – past, present and future.

I usually plot the story out in my head. Sometimes I only have the start or the middle of it. Lately I’ve been writing short separate pieces and then welding them together into one coherent whole. That takes a lot of editing and re-writes. I’ve written about 300,000 words since Xmas 2022. I have 4 stories going atm.

I liken my writing to recording a song in a studio. I lay down a basic track and then do the overdubs. The overdubs are the best part. The basic track can be just hard work.

I think there's a distinction between fantasy and believability. I do push my stories more towards fantasy than believability. I think you can have both at the same time, but my stories tend to focus on oedipal dreams, or on starved hot-wives sharing a young male between them. I also like tales featuring younger wide-eyed women and older, virile, so called “dirty old men.” Those themes may push the stories more towards fantasy than believability. I like female harems belonging to a single male, while other males miss out. Strange set of interests...

My writing is fueled by my unconscious desires and wishes. A good story for me is a deep dive into my psychological well and the giving of a voice to some pretty powerful, personal longings. The writing is good when I’m just, in a sense, looking in the mirror and am talking to myself.

 

[SimonDoom]

bonking. Always the bonking.

Sometimes the oral sex.

Go out with a bang, I say.

 

[SimonDoom]

I believe there are two types of writers: there are architects and there are gardeners.

Architects painfully plan out every details, constructing the narrative methodically brick by brick.

Gardeners, throw down seeds, water it, and see what happens. With luck, you have something salvageable.

I am of the gardener variety. My ramblings have a life of their own and I just prune the growth.

Art is tricky like that.

This metaphor works for me. I see myself as an architect. From the beginning I'm concerned about how the whole thing stands up.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Architects painfully plan out every details, constructing the narrative methodically brick by brick.

That's not quite right, at least for me.

I gleefully plan out every detail and then painfully try to write prose.

It's also not so much that we go brick by brick, it's more one of those skyscrapers where the scaffolding goes up first and we can then zoom about working on whichever bit we feel like because we've done the big picture stuff.

 

[KachinaDoll]

I learned a painful lesson this week - if you write in Word, save to a memory card, Drive or whatever. DON'T, like me, save to device. My tablet died on Wednesday. I lost quite a few partial stories. I'm so bloody angry with myself. My tablet was five years old and you think it will run forever. I even had a memory card in the damn thing!

Lesson learned. New tablet today and my tech savvy husband has set it up for me so there won't be a repeat. Question is; do I rewrite the stories or forget about them? For me, half the enjoyment is seeing where a story goes and how the characters develop. A rewrite just won't be the same. I'll have to give it some thought.

Anyway, when I write a story I have no idea where it's going. It starts with the germ of an idea. A 'what if?'. From there, it'll either evolve or fizzle out. I don't need much sleep and write best early in the morning. If I go to sleep at midnight, I'll be wide awake at 5am. It's not a problem, I've always been like that. So I write, laying in bed, from about five until seven. Sometimes my husband, G, will be there. Sometimes he's been called out during the night or is working away - he's a sort of IT firefighter, solving problems for panicking companies and institutions. I'm always very horny when I finish writing. Lucky for G if he's next to me, or it'll be down to me and my toys.

When I'm happy with a story, I'll let it sit for few weeks before reading it through again. Convinced that the grammar and spelling is perfect, I'll then run it through Grammarly and discover how wrong I was. But I don't use Grammarly on my tablet. You can only do that if you download the mandatory Grammarly keyboard which I hate. Instead, I use Grammarly on my desktop PC. Thankfully, some of my stories are saved there.

I don't know if this is normal, but I usually have half-a-dozen stories on the go which I dip in and out of. Those are the ones I've lost. One, I'd only just started, literally 500 or so words, so I'll carry on with that for now. It's another Native American themed story. My last one generated some really nice private comments from Native Americans. One public comment said, "Excellent. I wish we had more stories of Native Americans. We fuck, just like everyone else." So I must be doing something right.

 

[KachinaDoll]

I believe there are two types of writers: there are architects and there are gardeners.

Architects painfully plan out every details, constructing the narrative methodically brick by brick.

Gardeners, throw down seeds, water it, and see what happens. With luck, you have something salvageable.

I am of the gardener variety. My ramblings have a life of their own and I just prune the growth.

Art is tricky like that.

Yes, I'm definitely a gardener. I have no idea where a story will end up. It may blossom, it may wilt.

 

[KeithD]

I learned a painful lesson this week - if you write in Word, save to a memory card, Drive or whatever. DON'T, like me, save to device. My tablet died on Wednesday. I lost quite a few partial stories. I'm so bloody angry with myself. My tablet was five years old and you think it will run forever. I even had a memory card in the damn thing!

I know it will be hard to believe, but I still save to floppy disk.

 

[ronde]

As has been discussed at great length in previous threads, there are plotters and there are pantsers. Some of the authors that have responded to this thread have described themselves as pantsers. They get an idea and just start writing without a clear idea where it will end up. Not me. I like to plot. I get an idea, create a folder, and put two Word documents in it: one for the story and one for the story notes. In the notes document I usually work out the basics of the story, all the main characters and their chief characters, an outline of the plot, and sometimes I come up with key themes I want to write about. I almost always work out the ending before I'm very far along in the story. I often write the ending before I get far along. I like to know where the story will end up so everything I write makes sense in light of the ending.

I write on a desktop computer because I also use some CAD and I'd spend half my time expanding and reducing the screen on a laptop. I also like my big screen and I can't type on a cell phone or tablet without making a bunch of errors I have to go back and correct.

I definitely qualify as a plotter. Usually, I have an ending in mind before I start thinking about a plot. Once I have and ending in mind, I figure out what type characters the story needs to get to that ending in a believable manner. From that, a plot evolves based upon what I learn about my characters. When it seems right and at least plausible, sex happens.

I seldom start at the beginning and then try to steer the story to some kind of ending. Sometimes my characters redirect me from my original plot, so I know they'd always lead me somewhere I wasn't planning to go.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My writing is fueled by my unconscious desires and wishes. A good story for me is a deep dive into my psychological well and the giving of a voice to some pretty powerful, personal longings. The writing is good when I’m just, in a sense, looking in the mirror and am talking to myself.

Yes, this is me. Readers are a bonus. They can come along for the ride, but I'm not writing for them.

 

[neuroparenthetical]

So how does that work when your main character is, well, yourself?

Em (not a narcissist, honest)

Uh... well, that sounds like it would just be a convenient shortcut, since I've been "taking form" inside of my own head for quite a while, now. I'd like to think I have a decent handle on how I would react to various fictional scenarios. Indeed, that's precisely why I don't write about myself. I have a very good sense that my presence in any given story would make for a very boring story. I guess I could be the comic relief that gets killed off early. If you're a different sort of character, more power to you!

If the scenario isn't fictional, either, then I think you're veering into one of the seldom-discussed alternatives to "gardener" and "architect": "historian."

Granted, it's a bit of a misnomer. You should still be organizing, summarizing, and omitting to turn a dry, hyperliteral account into a more traditional yarn. Actual historians get in trouble for that sometimes (and arguably not nearly often enough.)

 

[oneagainst]

As has been discussed at great length in previous threads, there are plotters and there are pantsers. Some of the authors that have responded to this thread have described themselves as pantsers. They get an idea and just start writing without a clear idea where it will end up. Not me. I like to plot. I get an idea, create a folder, and put two Word documents in it: one for the story and one for the story notes. In the notes document I usually work out the basics of the story, all the main characters and their chief characters, an outline of the plot, and sometimes I come up with key themes I want to write about. I almost always work out the ending before I'm very far along in the story. I often write the ending before I get far along. I like to know where the story will end up so everything I write makes sense in light of the ending.

OMG. This is exactly me. I have found my people.

But in a non-creepy way.