My writing process.
So one thing I always find interesting is how different people go about writing. So here is my very complex writing process…
The Not So Secret life of Helena Callahan is based from another project I’m working on, but told through another characters point of view. Really I only started this story as a basis, and an introduction into my later stories, but before I knew it, it had grown into a story all of its own.
So for this story an outline isn’t really needed, because I already know where it’s heading, as I’ve practically already finished the stories from The Tainted Blood series which follows Helena’s story. So I tend to use that as a guideline.
In all honesty, I do a lot of visualisation (daydreaming) before I write, so I constantly have the next chapter pre-written in my head anyway. So it’s pretty much just a matter of getting it down onto paper, only my fingers have a hard time keeping up.
Whenever I write, there is always music playing, and not just any music…I’m talking loud, often alternative music, and sometimes screamo. I know what you’re thinking, “Don’t you find that distracting?” But the truth is, I don’t. I find no sound distracting, because I’m a dreamer. It’s incredibly hard for me to focus on one thing without getting distracted, and I think that when my ears are busy tuning out the loud music I often have blaring through my earphones, my eyes/hands can focus better on writing—and the one task at hand, as the rest of my brain is busy enough already. I know, I’m weird, but hey, it works…most of the time.
I often write when I am tired, because I think that that’s when my mind is most free. And when I write, I’m often zoned out. Most of the time I just go into the world I have created, become the character, and forget about my surrounds…of course, this has its downfalls. Like editing, for starters.
Editing, well, that’s never overly fun…but it is essential! At least if I want my story to make some sense, that is. I mean, because I write whilst listening to loud music/half asleep, there is always an abundance of errors.
Normally when I edit, it’s the next day, after I am finished working on the chapter. Otherwise, I often read from memory, and miss mistakes.
Once the editing is all done, I find a good picture/song. This is probably the most time consuming because I’m so picky. But normally I pick the song I wrote the chapter to.
Then when it’s been uploaded I re-read over it and knit-pick.
~♥~
Welcome to the Universe is made up from a similar process, with the loud music playing, and day after editing. But this story, however, does need an outline—though I rarely check it…because it’s based from a story my dad made up, I needed to organise it beforehand.
My outline was pretty much made up of points, which looked something like this (in case you’ve never written a story outline before).
Welcome to the Universe:
1.) Chapter one: Intro.
The main characters meet…blah blah blah—so on.
2.) Chapter two: Death.
The main character dies in a freak accident when…ect.
^ And that’s a very bad example of what a story outline should look like.
If your starting a new story, or just want to be very organised, character profiles can help also. And you can find templates of them just by searching in google. But here is an example of one, just in case you’ve never seen one before.
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Species:
Height:
Weight:
Hair:
Eyes:
Skin:
Alignment (good, evil, ect.):
Appearence and Physical Description:
Personality:
Main Weapon:
Special Skill:
Attacks:
Weaknesses:
History:
And of course you just fill in the blanks with information about each character.
I did need a story outline for Welcome to the Universe, but also made a few character profiles just for fun.
~♥~
Other tips:
1.) Don’t lose the flow.
If you’re really in the moment, feeling inspired, and you’re writing is flowing really well…but then you find one word/sentence isn’t working. Don’t stop. Skip past it, and just highlight it to go back and fix up later. You don’t want to waste time googling/looking up words when you could be writing. But make sure you don’t forget to fix it up when editing!
2.) Never stop writing at awkward points.
Stopping and starting writing is always hard, so try not to make it harder on yourself by stopping and starting at awkward points. Or better yet, try and keep an open ending at all times! So maybe instead of stopping at the end of a chapter, you could stop two paragraphs into the next chapter. That way, when you return to your work, you’re not just coming back to an empty page.
3.) Leave notes to yourself.
This is just something weird I do, but it really helps. Down the bottom of my page I write down quote that popped into my head, what I want to happen next and little memos I need to remember. Not every writer does this, but I find it very helpful so I thought I’d share.
