If you are reading this, you are probably trying to find your writing process. As newer writers, we are often told to nail down our process so that we consistently produce great writing. This is a little misleading. Finding what works for us is important, but we don’t realise that our process will develop over time, just like author voice. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t try different methods, but that we should allow ourselves the time and the written words to work it out.
I fell into the trap of trying to work out if I was better at outlining or discovery writing after hearing many authors talk about it. I discovered early on that writing without an outline left my story to fall apart halfway through. So, I went on to write with several different types of outlines, convinced that I was a plotter. I began to feel unsatisfied with this too like I was trading the excitement for a rigid outline. But I have made progress. Every time I wrote a book, regardless of my process, I improved my craft and that is more important
Sometimes it isn’t that a method isn’t working for you, it’s that you are not experienced enough to pull it off. Finding the best way for you takes hundreds of thousands of words and, like most things, don’t expect it to come to you straight away, or even to come to you after writing for five years. You should be aiming for the process that both excites you the most and helps you produce the best work.
First, I would recommend trying as many different methods as you can, every time taking something from the past that worked well and leaving the rest behind. I know that I find it difficult to develop a plot before the book is written yet I cannot go without any direction, and so I combine everything that has worked for me.
Processes change over time and even between projects, so don’t feel discouraged if you are starting a new book and find that repeating a process no longer works. Just make sure that you are not confusing a difficult scene with something not working as writing can feel impossible at times.
If you are still at a loss with what to do next, I have included eight different methods to try when writing your next novel.
Contents:
Start Small
The Arc Method
Discovery Writing
Starting with Conflict
Starting with the End
Writing Out of Order
Plotting Front to Back
Dialogue Only
1. Start Small
I would consider this to be the most hard-core plotting you could try. This is because your outline will be a detailed skeleton of the finished novel. Begin with a single sentence, such as an elevator pitch. Describe your story in the most concise way that you can, the shorter the better. This is the most influential step, so make sure you are sure about it before you move on. Next, expand it out into a paragraph that goes through the barest outline of a plot or character arc. In small increments build your story until you have a scene-by-scene outline of everything in your novel, from dialogue subjects to changes in emotion. I will warn you, this could take you just as long as writing the novel will and maybe half as many words.
2. The Arc Method
If you know the emotional journey you want your protagonist to go on, then this is something to try. First find a starting point, ideally just before they begin their change or growth. Then work out where you want them to be at the end of the story. Fill in the middle by working out the various steps needed to make that change then link up those incremental steps with plot points. This is important because the plot and the character arc need to fit well together. If you want to find out how to do that, check out my post on connecting character and plot here. This method can be used for more than one character too.
3. Discovery Writing
Writing without restriction is one of the most exciting ways to begin writing a book. I say ‘begin’ because it often relies on our passion for the story, and since this fluctuates wildly, it is difficult to sustain it through difficult scenes to write. Regardless, if you can make the simplest method of writing fiction work then points to you. There isn’t much to say about this other than, to start with a character in a situation or interesting setting and go from there. Make sure that the predicament the character is stuck in is interesting or difficult to get out of, to help capture your imagination even when the going is rough. With this method, you will likely have more revisions to do and will need to throw out hundreds to tens of thousands of words to make the story more readable.
4. Starting with Conflict
This is a bit like putting your character in a difficult situation but instead, you are placing two characters in the same place that immediately generates conflict. Whether you want to plot this out or not, this is a great way to push yourself away from flat characters, since the characters have to have depth and be unique, lest the conflict just fade. Again you could use this to introduce new characters as well as to start a story.
5. Starting with the End
This is quite self-explanatory, start with the ending and work your way back to the beginning. Like the method before, you can plan it backwards and then write your way from start to end or you can write it backwards. Or maybe, as I have done before, you have an idea for the climax of the story and you just write with that in mind. A lot of well-known authors use this method as it keeps their stories focused on that ending and helps them stay on track.
6. Writing Out of Order
If you have several scenes in your head that you know you want in the story, but cannot work out what goes around them, consider writing your book out of order. This is quite simple, you write the scenes you know and this should help you work out what comes before and after. I recommend however that you have some way to keep track of every scene that you write as it can get complicated. I have a full blog post, outlining this process so check that out here.
7. Plotting Front to Back
This is arguably the most convenient method of writing a book and if it works for you then you have a lot of resources to pull from. This is almost like writing the story before actually starting as a large portion of your creative energy is used to come up with an outline before you start, usually working front to back. Just don’t get too caught up if you find holes in your outline as you often come up with new ideas as soon as you start writing.
8. Dialogue Only
If you often get bogged down in descriptions and struggle to keep the pace of the story from slowing, then writing a dialogue-only first draft could help you. With this one, it doesn’t matter if you plot or not as you are simply writing the manuscript for the first time as if it were a screenplay. The best way to find out more about this is to research screenplay writing. Generally, you want to block a section of dialogue and then some concise exposition then back to dialogue as this is easier to turn into a full manuscript. It also encourages you to have more character interaction in scenes. A benefit of this is that it is much shorter, often a fraction of the length of a full manuscript which means it is quicker to fix problems before you write the actual prose around it.
Conclusion
If you have made it this far, then you are likely to be open to trying a new process. I would recommend writing a chapter or scene using each different one as a way to try them out. You might find something that works for you that you didn’t expect, helping to improve the quality of your writing. Regardless of how you decide to continue, make sure you keep putting words on paper.