My process is very different to most commenters or most writers really: I outline nothing. Outlines have been detrimental to me in the past, and it was through writing fanfic that I learned what my process was.
So, as a pantser or discovery writer as we're called, I have an idea, a mood, a visual, sometimes a sentence and... I start writing with no idea (or only a vague idea) of where it's all going. The crucial thing for me is to get the beginning right. I'll revise and often completely rewrite the first chapter/scene until I feel I've got it right, and once I do, I have my plot. It's all in there.
In Hush Darling, for instance, the first part gave me the character goal, the obstacles, the stakes, the antagonist and a ticking clock. All I needed to do was just keep writing. But I'd rewritten a couple of versions of that first scene until I got to the right one.
In dirtynumbangelboy, I wrote a calendar on paper, which I do with longer works to see whether it's been three days or three weeks since something happened, and I'd written a list of date ideas but not in order, I just wanted to have a pool of suggestions to draw from. In that case I had a song as inspiration and a mood and the whole fake dating trope, and I needed no other planning for 39k.
In the Miseducation, I basically wrote all 37k with no planning at all. I got the first chapter and the voice right, I came up with community service in Muggle London (that wasn't an idea I had before I started writing), and then the rest came to me as I wrote and researched more about London in that time period.
It might sound easy (it's definitely intuitive), but it does require a helluva lot of rewriting and revisions. I usually loop back every a few thousand words and reread what I've written and edit it as I go along. What always happens is that I've got half a fic written/edited/polished to death, and then the rest of it isn't even drafted lol. It used to be scary, but now I know it's part of my process, and I tell myself to trust my brain. It means that when I finish the draft, it's the final draft in terms of big changes. I then reread a million times and edit prose, flesh things out if necessary, cut redundancies (I'm a bit cutter), and check pacing.
As for plotting, when I get to the end of a scene, I ask simply: what happens next? How does the character feel now about this? What's their reaction? How can I make things worse for her?
Idk if this was at all helpful as it's a very idiosyncratic way of writing but I'd say that a final bit of advice is to spend some time before writing researching stuff. Like, for Hush Darling I researched incubus lore, I looked at paintings of Mora and Incubi, I skimmed through poems about it, I looked at kintsugi ceramics bc it was part of the fic, I read passages from fave books with the same mood I was going for (this helps a great deal!!), I listened to songs trying to find one to fit that mood etc. It sounds like a waste of time, but I've come to the realisation that it isn't (unless, of course, you use the research time to avoid writing, in which case it is procrastination).
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-12-10 11:15 am (UTC)So, as a pantser or discovery writer as we're called, I have an idea, a mood, a visual, sometimes a sentence and... I start writing with no idea (or only a vague idea) of where it's all going. The crucial thing for me is to get the beginning right. I'll revise and often completely rewrite the first chapter/scene until I feel I've got it right, and once I do, I have my plot. It's all in there.
In Hush Darling, for instance, the first part gave me the character goal, the obstacles, the stakes, the antagonist and a ticking clock. All I needed to do was just keep writing. But I'd rewritten a couple of versions of that first scene until I got to the right one.
In dirtynumbangelboy, I wrote a calendar on paper, which I do with longer works to see whether it's been three days or three weeks since something happened, and I'd written a list of date ideas but not in order, I just wanted to have a pool of suggestions to draw from. In that case I had a song as inspiration and a mood and the whole fake dating trope, and I needed no other planning for 39k.
In the Miseducation, I basically wrote all 37k with no planning at all. I got the first chapter and the voice right, I came up with community service in Muggle London (that wasn't an idea I had before I started writing), and then the rest came to me as I wrote and researched more about London in that time period.
It might sound easy (it's definitely intuitive), but it does require a helluva lot of rewriting and revisions. I usually loop back every a few thousand words and reread what I've written and edit it as I go along. What always happens is that I've got half a fic written/edited/polished to death, and then the rest of it isn't even drafted lol. It used to be scary, but now I know it's part of my process, and I tell myself to trust my brain. It means that when I finish the draft, it's the final draft in terms of big changes. I then reread a million times and edit prose, flesh things out if necessary, cut redundancies (I'm a bit cutter), and check pacing.
As for plotting, when I get to the end of a scene, I ask simply: what happens next? How does the character feel now about this? What's their reaction? How can I make things worse for her?
Idk if this was at all helpful as it's a very idiosyncratic way of writing but I'd say that a final bit of advice is to spend some time before writing researching stuff. Like, for Hush Darling I researched incubus lore, I looked at paintings of Mora and Incubi, I skimmed through poems about it, I looked at kintsugi ceramics bc it was part of the fic, I read passages from fave books with the same mood I was going for (this helps a great deal!!), I listened to songs trying to find one to fit that mood etc. It sounds like a waste of time, but I've come to the realisation that it isn't (unless, of course, you use the research time to avoid writing, in which case it is procrastination).