Greetings!I tell people I'm a writer and by writing every day I seem to actually be one. And people are excited about the fact that I am writer. They love that I feel so passionate about writing and tell me that I should things about stuff that I would never even dream of writing. Still, they know I'm a writer.
What happens though, is that I tell people I'm working in a writing project and they get excited. And then it happens that after a month or so they get on my case, like "Where the heck is that book you were supposed to write?"
Now, sometimes, it happens that I end up hating a story while I write and I stop working on it. Sometimes I feel like it's too Twilighty because the plot is covered in sugar and the main character is a Mary Sue who gets whatever they want. Sometimes, I'll hate the plot and there's no saving that. Other times the whole story will drag. Other time it will move way too fast.
The worst is having a good plot and characters I like but doing something to the story that just makes my skin crawl, knowing I can fix it but not knowing how.
The thing that changed it all for me was in 12th grade when I participated in NaNoWriMo for the very first time. This was an eyeopening experience.
I now know that Jo Rowling didn't sit down and write Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in one sitting (though sometimes I like to dream that she did. I've kept her on a pedestal since I was nine). I'm going to guess that her first draft was a lot better than any first draft I've ever written, but I'm only 19 and haven't sucked enough yet (that's what she said).
National Novel Writing Month taught me a lot about myself and since then I have honed not only my writing ability but the things I have to before I actually write anything at all.
Were you one of those kids who went to a school where they made you outline every paper ever before you actually got write the paper and then they made you do a first draft before you turned in a final copy? Well, I did and I loathed it.
But guess what: they also drilled how to cite everything ever in MLA format so now I kickass at writing college paper (or at least citing in them--and I don't mean to brag but my works cited pages always look pretty glorious as well).
The point is, I now know that I cannot write a book or a short story or even a paper for class unless I outline it first.
There is an entire process to how I write things from beginning to end. It's my very own 12 Step Program (your results may vary). Now I'd like to share it with you:
Step One:
Write down a short synopsis of the entire thing.
This is the first thing that I always, always do. Sometimes I skip it and go straight to step two but then I end up staring at a page for an hour trying to figure out how to end it. Essentially, I just have to write down the gist of the entire thing. "MC goes here, does this, meets MC2. So on and so forth." If I like then I move on to. . .
Step Two:
Naming my characters.
"What? This is the second thing you do? Are you on crack?" No, I am not on crack. There is a method to my madness. Have you ever heard someone say "don't name it because you'll get attached to it?" Well, that's what I do. Naming the main characters in the story (usually just the hero/heroine and their merry band of sidekicks) bonds me to them. Not only that, but once a character has a name, then I can work out how they behave as well. I develop their personalities around their name. For instance if I name someone something like "Cloud Storm" (I would never really use that name by the way) I would know that they're probably going to be dark and angry and mean and whatnot. Once I know how my characters SHOULD behave (more on that later) I know what kinds of things they would do or wouldn't do and that helps me down the road when I need to move the story along.
Step Three
"Chapter" summaries.
I use "chapter" loosely because rarely have I ever written down a chapter summary that ended up filling up enough space to be what I consider a chapter. But, it gives me a place to start and lets me get a little more in-depth with the story. This is a life saver because the story is already in my head and I know what's going to happen. The chapter summaries tell me this has to happen before this happens. I make sure to write down that certain relationship need to have advanced to this stage or someone has to be killed before this point and so on. I have to keep in mind, however, that I am a crazy person and I write down lots of things that don't make sense. For instance, in my most recent outline I wrote down that my MCs parents sent her a care package from Russia filled with, and I quote "Russian stuff". I don't know what that means and I doubt that I did when I wrote it down the first time.
Step Four
Begin writing exposition.*
It's taken me a very long time to realize that exposition is the hardest thing in the world for me to read AND write. Sometimes I get so frustrated with exposition that I just quit. I'm not proud of it, but I do. But I'm a little older and little wiser and I know have to push myself through it. I know it's going to suck because it's the first draft and it always sucks but this is the first great hurdle I get to every time and I know that if I can make this jump everything else will (usually) fall into place the way it needs to. Introducing the setting, characters, and the plot is always the toughest. It's like eating a salad as an appetizer while waiting for your fillet mignon to come out of the kitchen. The salad is necessary because it's good for you and prepares your stomach for the heavy meat you're about to eat but you'd much rather just have the juicy piece of steak wrapped in bacon now and forget all about the salad.
Step Five
Dealing with your characters who (apparently) call the shots.
Once I've started writing, the story is pretty much out of my hands. I don't control what my characters say or do or how they act. They are their own persons and they say whatever. This is frustrating because sometimes I feel like "Bob, why are you being so nice to everyone. You were supposed to be my rebel without a cause!" Apparently Bob didn't want to be the rebel--he wanted to be the bad ass with a heart of gold. Now I know what you're thinking, the character developed that way because that's how I wrote it. But if you remember in step two I say that I write how they SHOULD behave. They don't always stay that way. As I write (as everyone writes) things grown and change and become different and that mostly happens with my characters and I change the world around them to fit them so everything I write goes together well. Of course, there are time when my characters behave in a way that I don't particularly approve of and then I have to punish them. This can vary depending on the offense--if someone decides they want to be friends with someone they were never intended to be friends with I might kill them off or maybe if they think their life is all sunshine and rainbows and perfect, I'll put them in a humiliating situation from which they will never recover. My characters do take on a life of their own but I have to make sure they remember I am their god. I created them--I can destroy them.
Step Six
Do not edit.
Yes, this is a step. After I've gotten through the first few chapters I'll always think of things that I should go back and change or that I can add to make it flow better. No. Absolutely not. That's like taking one step forward and two steps back. Editing now is the enemy. I have to tell myself to keep writing. However, there are times when editing is necessary, like when you have a massive plot change, it's pretty important that you try to fix all that stuff. At least, if I don't do it, I forget about it and then look back and confuse myself. But usually, I don't edit until the end. HOWEVER, since every writer ever feels this desire to edit, if I'm having a particularly good day writing: If I write an entire chapter or something else really awesome, I'll allow myself one hour to edit whatever I want. I get my editing fix and I'll have made progress with the actually story. Everyone wins.
Step Seven
Remind myself that I actually enjoy writing.
After I get far enough into, writing does start to feel like a chore and it shouldn't. This fatigue actually means that I'm almost there. I usually feel like this just before I get to the climax of the story. It's like I'm climbing an actual hill of rising action trying to get to the tippy top where the climax is. It's all down hill after climax after all. Still, all of the anticipation and excitement that happens at the climax is so overwhelming that I again feel like I'm eating a salad and want to get to my steak. You think all those guys who climbed Mount Everest didn't feel like quitting, especially when they got near the top--the air is thin, it's really cold. Maybe a few people have gotten really sick, but they were almost there! just a few more feet, just push a little farther and you'll get to the peak. After that, all you have to do is carefully climb down.
Step Eight
The climax!
The best part of the story! Where everything EXPLODES in a fiery blaze of glory! This is where Harry and his gang sneak past Fluffy! This is where Clio and Aidan get attacked by pirates! This is where The Fellowship of the Ring gets attacked by orcs! This is where the magic happen. The trick for me is to be very meticulous otherwise I blow through it so fast that it actually ends up sucking and then it turns into one of those books where people read it and say "I liked it until. . ." (For me, one of these books was Maximum Ride: The Final Warning. "I liked it until they it turned into a book about Global Warming."). My most recent climax involves a fight with a giant chimera and Google. . . Just ponder that one for a minute.
Step Nine
SLOW DOWN. Ties up loose ends.
The end is where I always screw up. Everything is going well and good and then I realize I'm almost and screw it all up because I didn't take the time to actually tie up everything or I just blazed through it or I just decide to go all M. Night Shamalamadingdong on it and leave myself feeling like I wasted a lot of time and will never get back the precious hours I spent working on it. I have to slow down. I make sure that I resolve everything. I have to make sure that everything is peachy keen and all that good stuff. This is where I just have to relax and let the words flow out like they should. I have a much easier time doing this now that I've learned to outline instead of just planning off the top of my head.
Step Ten
Walk away. Don't look back.
Walk away from it. Don't look at it. Don't think about it. Write some fan fiction. Throw a party. Take a nap. Eat some cupcakes. After a while has passed (some people wait six months. Some people wait a month. Some people think 24 hours away from it is enough) go look at it with a fresh set of eyes. Then brace yourself.
Step Eleven
Have a panic attack
"Did I really write something this horrible? Did I really think that this line was witty? The plot is all over the place? My grammar is horrible! I totally spelled that word wrong!" If you look at your first draft and you don't feel any of these things, get your eyes checked. Pronto. Take a deep breath. All first drafts suck. They are bad. Like I said, Jo didn't write Deathly Hallows in one sitting, no matter how much I want to pretend she did. And even if she did do it in one sitting, I'm not J.K. Rowling and I'm not that awesome.
Step Twelve
Remove shiny red pen and attack the novel.
This is the final step. Break out your red pen or pencil or whatever it is you use to edit and correct everything. Don't stop until that bad boy is covered in ink. Don't stop until you've written "WTF" on every single page. Don't stop until the margins are so cramped with corrections that you can't write anymore.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I've only ever gotten as far as step eleven because a lot of things I've written, I've looked back at just haven't been worth saving. Like that book I wrote in 10th grade and my first NaNoWriMo novel--all things that I still have that just remind me there's ALWAYS room for improvement and that sometimes it really is okay to just start from scratch.
After you've sucked enough and written until your hand falls off, you'll have written a novel. High five yourself. You're awesome.
There's only one part of writing that I forgot to mention and that is not writing, i.e., procrastination. Sometimes it's much easier to write about HOW I write as opposed to actually writing. Procrastinating usually strikes me during steps four, seven, and nine. Be wary.
Writing isn't easy. It makes you want to *head desk* and *face palm* and throw your laptop across the room. Just because someone is good at writing doesn't mean ideas come to them easily. It doesn't mean we can just sit down and crank out awesomeness. It takes time. It takes a lot patience. Then it takes more patience. Not just from the writer but from the people anticipating the book as well.
Anyway, I might get done faster if I didn't procrastinate this way. . .
Fare thee well,
April <3
*I feel like I should have a step before this that involves me outlining more thoroughly or something, but I have yet to figure out a way to do this without annoying myself with detail.
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