As a writer, I get asked a lot of questions. People are curious about the process and curious about how I write. Honestly, the writing process is unique to each person, so we all have to find our own way.
Over the years, and through much trial and error, I’ve learned what works. And while most aspects of writing do come easily, there are some bits that are challenging. The most difficult part is the initial chapters.
When starting a new book, I spend a lot of time brainstorming. Usually an image or an idea is inspiring, so I play around with it for a while. When a clear picture comes into focus, those ideas are placed into a loose outline. Here is where writers who plot shine. They spend quite a bit of time carefully crafting a detailed outline. A pantser is a phrase borrowed from the expression ‘seat of their pants’. This is a writer who sits down and writes. An updated term for pantser is discovery writer. A discovery writer essentially discovers their story as they write it.
I personally think I fall somewhere in the middle and am a bit closer to a discovery writer. I can’t sit down cold and write a complete story without some thought and a loose outline. I need a bit of a beginning, a few ideas for the middle, and an ending. For me, an outline is a few generally worded bullet points at different stages of the story. To give you an idea, here are the points for a chapter I worked on this past week:
- Talis and Dante go in first and fight. They go right.
- Finn and Elodie go in after and go left.
- They find a room. They are discovered and there’s lot of fighting.
- Scene end: They find information that’s important.
At this point, you might be wondering how I wrote a whole chapter from this very generally worded outline. Sometimes I wonder that myself, but it works because it gives my character steps. As a writer who leans closer to the ‘discovery’ side, I find the first few chapters challenging. I am learning about the world and characters, so there are a lot of starts, rewrites, and low word-count days. It’s frustrating.
Over the years, though, I’ve learned to value this time. For me, creativity flows with the process. In other words, ideas won’t come to me until my character is in a scene. An author’s job is to essentially create trouble for their character, and then help the character out of it. When a character is in trouble, I’m forced to consider their personality, abilities, skills, etc. and determine how they are going to escape. Will they fight? How will they fight?
The fun part is that suddenly, something about the character’s magic will fit perfectly. And if I was still trying to sort out a plot, the solution never would have happened. In other words, I need to be in that difficult and frustrating moment to figure things out. I’ve also learned that my writing is much richer when I allow my creativity this freedom.
So whatever your writing style, when you hit those roadblocks, release your creativity to find a way through.
K. M. Wray 