Every writer has a different process. Some spend a great deal of time drafting complex outlines, character interviews, and all sorts of things before they write a book. They know every scene before they write and need that roadmap to continue. If I write that detailed a plan, I would never write the actual book. Much of the fun of writing, for me, is creating a story. Here’s a rough attempt at explaining my process.
In the months leading up to writing a new story, I spend a lot of time pondering what I will write next. I think about every aspect of the story — the world, the characters, the plot, and all sorts of other details — but my notes tend to be just notes. I have a collection of scribbles in a book that I keep as I ponder what my world, characters, and story might be like. Often, these ideas come to me when I am walking the dogs, working in the yard, or cleaning the house.
Note that no television was mentioned in any of those cases. I usually have music on in the background, because music is so important to me that, if chosen to fit a mood or theme, it can inspire ideas. Television, however, is one big, giant distraction. So is NPR, which I adore, but must turn off when I’m trying to be creative. Both TV and NPR throw out ideas that will distract me from the ideas I am trying to create and zap all hope of story progress, so I turn them off and let my mind do the idea creating.
I let the ideas churn around for a while, then decide what direction I will take. When all that thinking is done, I have a good idea of what my world will be like, who my main characters are, and what the main plot twists should be. I may even know the setting of the three acts I use to construct my story. Then I sit down and write what is essentially a pre-writing summary or synopsis of two to three pages single spaced.
That’s it in terms of my pre-writing plan. Summary written, I create a document where I can track all the characters I use as I write the story, including any significant attributes so that I can keep those attributes consistent through the story. I create an extra page in my pre-writing summary notebook for in-process ideas. Let’s say I’m still writing a scene early in the book, but have a thought about a later scene that I don’t want to lose. I put it in my in progress scene ideas tab with an approximate idea of where it might be useful. I also create an excel file where I track my word count on a daily basis. I keep these three files open while I write and I get busy.
I know this process wouldn’t work for a lot of people, but it works for me during nanowrimo. I jokingly call it “writing without a net” because it is a fairly free-form process. I think it works for me because writing an entire draft of a book in one intense month forces me to stay in the story pretty much all the time. Since I stay in the story, I am able to maintain a more fluid story line than I would if I tried this method but only wrote on weekends (or pretty much at any rate other than intensely every day over a short period of time).
I’ve always written this way, but in the past, I wrote only on weekends and over a much longer period of time. When I came to the end of that story, it was more disjointed. I think it lost some story continuity because it was written without much of a plan over a much longer period of time.
I think nanowrimo works so well for me because I need to pound out the first draft quickly so that I don’t lose the momentum and story continuity. By writing every day, my mind is constantly in the story. I’m thinking about the story in the shower, on the way to and from work, during lunch, while walking the dogs, and pretty much any time that I am not working.
I can maintain this intense focus for a month, but not much longer. I always know that there is an end in sight. When November is over, I will have a finished draft that I can edit at a slower pace, and I can go back to doing things with friends sometimes on evenings and weekends (social interaction I need).
