Writing Process

My paternal grandfather has always been a big supporter of my writing. Whenever I would tell him something that happened he would nod his head, wave his finger and say “You know, that would make a good story. You should write that down.”

One day he made the comment that I should explain my writing process. So that is today. Not that many people are too terribly interested; I’m writing this for my grandfather.

At this point I’ve completed three novels (roughly 90,000 words each), halfway through three (all between 40,000-50,000), a handful of short stories (5,000-ish words), and a couple dozen flash fiction stories. I have plenty more ideas written down in my little book. Who knows when I’ll get to those but by golly, I’m going to try. So now that shows you how much/little I’ve actually written.

My writing process is as follows and I’ll use my novel Warehouse Seventeen as an example. First is to come up with an idea that can actually be intricate enough to reach 90,000 words.

I’ve always been fascinated by the ancient city of Mesa Verde. It was a Native American village built into the cliff face. The idea that everyone in the entire city moved around using long ladders and occasionally skinny walkways fascinates me. But why with rock, why not skyscrapers with catwalks and ladders? That was my first idea.

I’ve always wanted to write about bounty hunters. They are very hard and tough people and in the past they were kind of like SWAT, in my mind anyways. If there was someone who was extremely dangerous and the police couldn’t get, just put a bounty on their head and some tough hunter would take them down. So in my mind SWAT can be replaced by the Bounty Hunters. That was my second idea.

Ever read a book where there is a vision or prophecy and it basically spells out the rest of the story. All you have to do is figure out how to interpret the vagueness. While seers are really neat, they have become somewhat predictable. I created a seer that always sees false. The consequence of the action in her vision is always wrong. She doesn’t know what will happen but she knows exactly what won’t happen. That was my third idea.

So at this point I have my setting and my characters. Now all I have to come up with is plot. (In some of my books I come up with the plot first. Like a plague that is wiping out the population in a certain way, or a witness protection program to another dimension.)

From here I like to develop the characters even further. When I have all their stats figured out and neatly organized in a web, I try putting them in different situations. With the two main characters as a seer and a bounty hunter I needed to determine what could connect them both. The villain.

With characters, plot, and setting I begin to write. I am most definitely a discovery outlinist. I discovery write the first half of the book towards an ending. It’s clear in my mind and I know exactly how it is going to end. However, it never fails that once I get to about 40,000 words the ending always changes, dramatically.

Once I figure out the real ending I outline towards it. My outline just consists of writing the order in which things need to happen. Never in much detail but enough of an idea of how to get from point A to B.

(I really didn’t mean for this post to go on for so long, sorry.)

I learned recently that I’m really odd in how I write. I write from beginning to end. I never jump around and I rarely go back and add things until the whole book is finished. I’ll make notes of what I do need to add and when I start revising I’ll go back in. Every book I’ve tried to write in segments has never been finished. (That isn’t why the three aren’t finished. I still plan on working on those but other projects got priority. I have plenty of notes on how to finish them. One of them is my current project and is coming along great.)

I hate letting people read stories that are incomplete. Now that I’ve said that, I’m in a writing group where I am writing a story and letting them read it. Though what they’ve said hasn’t been detrimental, or even influenced my story, I hate telling them one idea then telling them a new idea the next week. I told you, I’m a discovery writer. I have no solid idea of what is going to happen next. People suddenly get girlfriends, and others suddenly die. Hey, I’m just as surprised.

My other writing groups get to read chapters of books I’ve already finished. I like listening to them trying to figure out where I’ve gone with it. If they can guess the ending too soon I know I need to change it.

So anyways, long post, that’s how I write. It is the same whether I’m writing a novel or a short piece. For great ideas on writing try listening to the Writing Excuses podcast.