My Process
The writing process that I use today is similar to what I used to break out of my streak of writing failures. With this process, I went from dreading my writing time to looking forward to it every day. It has evolved over time, so the below steps attempt to average out how I’ve approached writing over the years. If this process feels good to you, please use it, and adjust and tweak it to your style. Or your ideal writing process may be entirely different; if that’s the case, you can always compare and contrast to this process to see if you find anything useful to adapt into your style:
1: Start a Document
Okay, this might seem silly, but it helps to get a blank page ready at the start. For me, this is usually a Google Docs file, and I’ll use it for jotting down ideas, character information, and initial outlining. As the project matures, I’ll often move details into separate documents as I launch my first draft. I’ve also used a notebook or even loose paper, since the tactile nature of writing by hand can jog ideas. One other thing: I don’t usually start with a title - I’ll often just pop a descriptor as the document title, something like “Sandcastle Story” or “Jane’s Story” or something conceptual like “Asteroid Spaceship Story.” That’s because my biggest weakness is with titles. If you have a title already, go ahead and pop that in to anchor your story.
2: Generating Ideas
Some writers have an enormous backlog of ideas (I’m fortunate to be one of those), while others desperately want to write but can’t quite nab a compelling idea. So, if you’re in that latter boat, here are some sources I use:
Inspiration from your own life: one of my stories started off as a twist on my own experiences, before growing into something very different. Events in your own life, even ones that seem mundane, can be good starting points.
Turning it up to 11: I read a piece of writing advice a long time ago that recommended making your scenes, characters, and events far more dramatic and explosive than what seems reasonable. With that, you can take an idea that might be too small or boring for a reader and make it crazy. The story I’m looking to publish started off as a low-key mystery...but it was boring, so I experimented by tossing fantasy and sci-fi elements in and dialing almost everything up to what felt absurd. And it worked. By “overdoing” it, I actually landed in a good spot.
Combination inspiration: you see this concept a lot, and it even shows up on questionnaires from literary agents and publishers: what is the story a “meets or mixture” of? You can use this concept to generate ideas: list out some of your favorite books, films, shows, etc. and pair them up (or put them in sets of threes) to see if any of those mixtures spark a cool idea.
Pick a starting point: many ideas start from single observations, memories, or encounters. Perhaps an exotic vista of foggy mountains or black sand beaches triggers a setting idea, or even a plot concept. Or perhaps you recall a teacher or coworker with a big personality, and that gives you a character to build off of. Any time something you experience triggers a notable emotional response or a string of thoughts, it could be the seed of a story.
Dreams: this may seem weird, but if you happen to remember dreams, one of them could serve as a story foundation, even if you change it drastically. Maybe you have a dream about falling, and you take that into an idea about a reluctant hero that can fly. Maybe you have a nightmare about the dentist, and it turns into a story about escaping the lair of a mad scientist.
3: Character Creation
Because my characters are my partners in forming the story, I want to understand them early. Often, the ideas phase will have generated the basis for one or more characters, but I still like to go into more depth.
At this point, I normally have a document open for story planning. Sometimes, it will remain a separate document. Other times, the contents will simply float at the bottom of my draft document. At the start, I’d recommend a second document: if you have a dual monitor setup, you can put your planning and info-dump document on one while you write on the other. Or you can print out the separate document or use a notebook. But if you’re working on a single monitor and think you may be updating your plans frequently, sticking your collection of ideas at the bottom of your active document is best.
For my main character and other important characters (like close companions, primary villains, and such), I’ll do character sheets. Here’s a character sheet that I assembled from a few sources. It’s important to note that you do not have to fill out the entire sheet. I’m quite a completionist and I’ve never filled out an entire sheet, even for my main character. Instead, I filled in the parts that felt most important. I almost always assign an Enneagram type, as I use that personality system to help keep interactions, reactions, and motivations consistent (read more about that on the Enneagram page). For secondary characters, I’ll often assign Enneagram types, but I find that brief notes on their personalities are usually sufficient. If you want to be thorough, you can do a write-up on all of your characters (this is the Rowling method, where she put together detailed background information for most (if not all) named characters), which will do wonders for the authenticity and consistency of your characters. With characters, you want to build an iceberg: your readers will only ever see the small parts that float above the surface, but you’ll be aware of the mass underneath.
In the next phase, as I start outlining, I’ll often find myself creating more characters or adjusting the ones that I have. And the characters that I already have will influence the outline.
4: Outlining
This part of my process has changed the most over time.
Early on, I produced full, detailed outlines. In the form of bulleted notes, I created each scene and included notes on how the major characters developed. I made sure to note the setting of each scene, along with any important details from the lore involved. I kept the outline document open while writing, and I consulted it frequently. Then I got even more detailed: for a story set in the mid-2000s, I looked up what the weather was on the days that my story took place, as well as the phase of the moon for nighttime scenes (and no, it had nothing to do with werewolves or anything else for which the moon would be important). In hindsight, that feels rather excessive. I’m not going to not recommend doing that, as it can be useful, but never feel that you have to dive that deep.
As I’ve become more comfortable with my process, my outlines have become far less intense. Now, I’ll often just summarize or note the major plot points (usually to check that they make sense and follow a reasonable pattern). Sometimes, I don’t even have a separate outline document: I just pop the summary outline at the bottom of my active draft document, so I can quickly scroll down to it from where I’m writing. Or I throw together a quick outline in a Notepad document that I keep open.
Overall, I’ve reached a point where the outline is far less of a driver of the story and more of a reference. My characters now have far more influence on the direction of my stories, and the outline serves to keep the plot from wandering away.
5: Writing
When I actually write, I set aside a decent amount of time (for me, that’s about an hour or more) and dive in. I’ll consult my outline and notes to check where I’m at, read a bit of whatever I’ve already written before, and go forward.
I don’t worry too much about the quality of the writing as I start. The idea here is to get momentum on the story itself. If I hit a block, I’ll often pop some placeholder text into the difficult area and skip to the next paragraph or scene. As I go, I keep my outline and plot flexible, and I stay open to character tweaks if I find some glaring mismatches. I try hard to make sure my characters have agency, and that the plot isn’t forcing them to do things that don’t make sense. Sometimes, that requires pausing and editing the outline (or popping in placeholder text and moving on).
6: Editing
Editing is honestly 90%+ of what I spend my time on, especially if you consider re-writing or changing/adding scenes as part of editing.
I’ll often go back and do editing passes as I’m writing a first draft, especially if I leave the work for a while. As I’m writing this entry, I’m about halfway through the first draft of a science-fiction novel, and I’ve done two full editing passes on the first half before I started adding new content.
When I edit, I start off with read-throughs: I update wording, dialogue, and tone as I go. For higher-level editing (at the level of the overall story), I’ll consult my outline or write some notes that summarize each scene or chapter. After a few passes, I’ll do read-aloud edits. I still find those super awkward to do, but they’re incredibly helpful.
Once I’m more or less happy with the story (which often takes quite a few editing passes), I’ll move on to the next step…and after that step, I come back to editing again based on the feedback I receive.
For more details on editing, I have a full post on the subject.
7: Reviews/Feedback
Getting quality reviews of your work can be difficult, and there are a few options to try:
If you don’t plan on publishing your work (or if it’s fan fiction), you can upload it to a site (like Archive of Our Own or FanFiction.net) and readers will typically provide some limited feedback and reviews. This is great if you’re just starting out and want to get an initial map of your growing edges before you fully commit.
You can ask friends and family to read and review your work, but be aware that they might not be able or willing to provide you with critical feedback. That being said, readers like that can be a good early step to sanity-check for your works.
Clubs, organizations, or communities: whether in-person or online, there are a wide variety of communities out there for writers to discuss and share work, which can include giving and receiving feedback. These can be amazing resources, and they help you be a resource to others, but going down this route usually means making commitments to social interaction and extra time. So, if you have a tight schedule and/or you’re an introvert, this might be difficult.
Paid beta readers can be a solid resource, with some caveats. First, you have to spend money, especially if you want a good and thorough review. And second, some reviewers are…how to say this…feel-good reviewers. They’ll heap a lot of praise on your work while providing only a few points of critical feedback; that can be incredibly validating, but it’s not nearly as useful as constructive criticism. I went this route, saving up some money to hire two beta readers. The first one was more of a feel-good one, but still provided good feedback. The second one produced a full and detailed report, uncovering a major issue with the back half of my novel, along with many points of critical and positive feedback. I found both beta readers on Fiverr, and there are likely other resources out there to find them.
I did the first one (releasing the work to a site) for a pair of fan fiction stories that I used to kick off my process. For my original works, I asked a couple of family members to read them, which helped a lot with some early edits. I had a former coworker (an avid reader) who I wanted to ask to be a beta reader, but she moved away. So eventually, I turned to paid beta readers, and that experience gave my work a big jump in quality.
8: Release
Finally, when the crappy first draft has been hammered and shaped into something beautiful, it’s time to release it to the world. When I released fan fiction works, I wrote the entire story first and then uploaded a new chapter every few days, doing a final editing pass before releasing.
For my original works, I’ve only just started that journey. There are three general paths that I’ve found:
Submitting directly to publishers: there are some small, medium, and even large publishers out there who will take unsolicited manuscripts, but they can be few and far between. Despite the seeming rarity, I have a list of a dozen such publishers that I’m looking at: the only downside is that many of them are highly niche in what they publish, so make sure you’re a good fit before reaching out. Also, I signed up for Authors Publish, which sends out lists of publishers accepting submissions. They only show legitimate publishers, as there are many scam publishers out there (and even if a publisher looks legitimate, always double-check by searching for any scam reports associated with them). Whatever resource you use, make sure you check to make sure the publisher is legitimate, and if you get to the point where there’s a contract in front of you, you should invest in asking a lawyer take a look at it. The last thing you want is to have your hard work get sucked into a scam.
Literary agents: most publishers, especially large ones, will only accept manuscript submissions through agents. As with small or medium publishers, literary agents are often looking for specific types of stories (or even specific types of authors), so check their profiles and websites before submitting a message. I used Reedsy to find a couple of agents to reach out to, and there are other resources out there for finding and contacting them.
Self-publishing: a lot of people will tell you to do this, especially with the ease of platforms like Amazon to do so. But remember: if you go this route, you’ll need to hire someone to format your book properly for printed books and/or eBooks. You’ll also need to commission cover art. And, most important, you’ll have to do your own marketing. If you have a solid social media presence, you’ll get a jump on marketing. But if you haven’t done any marketing before, it is not easy. So before self-publishing, make sure to look into what you have to do to make it work.
Right now, I’m pursuing both unsolicited submissions and literary agents. And to be honest, making this website has been a part of that process, as many of the submission questionnaires ask about whether you have a website. I’ve paused my publisher and agent search as I’ve been building this site and its content, but you can be sure I’ll write a post or update one of the existing ones when I match up with an agent and/or get a publisher!
Conclusion
This is the process that came from trying many of the tips and recommendations that I mention on the other posts. Something like this might work well for you, but you might find yourself adopting something entirely different. Feel free to try this if it feels right, otherwise check out the “Start Here” post and go from there!