Writing Process
Jun. 13th, 2009 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serindranaSo, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
puella_nerdii once mentioned that she was thinking about making a post about her writing process. After seeing mithrigil's post today on the progress of her current fic, I decided to make my own post on my process. :)
Generally, if it's more than a single-scene one shot, I write out a flow of scenes. I write out a rough outline, something like:
(This page is from my planning for this past year's NaNoWriMo. :) )
These are usually hand-written, as I'm a terrible writer on paper (as opposed to the computer), so I do all my brainstorming in class or when I'm not on the computer.
Between when I write the outline and when I write a scene, I tend to play the scene through at least once in my head. I also tend to think of the piece as a whole and work out whatever underlying themes I want to put in there. For instance, with Negative Confessions, the themes are self-sacrifice, self-punishment, and self-discovery. Woot woot for the pretentious part.
The playing through my head is the most fun and most important. The only problem is that I keep forgetting to write down dialogue pieces in a notebook, so I have to reconstruct later. Each run through changes, though, depending on my mood.
When I actually write the scene, I sort of just... go. I look at the rough scene summary I wrote, then just start writing. I have to be "in the mood" to do it, but I can usually work myself up into it, as long as I'm not distracted. I tend to plow through a scene at a time, just letting the dialogue happen (which is why it often becomes rather meandering if I'm not careful) and focusing more on the description. I'm a total description junkie, and I have, in the past, written whole short stories with no direct dialogue, and made it work.
I usually don't divide my longer pieces into parts. Negative Confessions is an exception, since I wrote it intending to post it, and I had chapter titles provided by the story title. I'm tempted to start dividing, though, because Negative Confessions is allowing me to edit as I go. I write two or three scenes, then edit one, then go ahead writing one scene and editing one scene.
I've found that my writing process makes it rather difficult for me to edit beyond fixing mistakes and sometimes smoothing out sentences. I've never majorly reworked a scene. I tend to just keep it as it came out, since it happened and wasn't formally constructed. I just don't know where to begin.
I'm more likely to scrap a scene completely while writing it than to rewrite it later. I like to edit as I go.
Aaand... I think that's it? If anybody wants to know more, feel free to ask questions. :)
Now, off to write the short drabbles I was planning on...
puella_nerdii once mentioned that she was thinking about making a post about her writing process. After seeing mithrigil's post today on the progress of her current fic, I decided to make my own post on my process. :)Generally, if it's more than a single-scene one shot, I write out a flow of scenes. I write out a rough outline, something like:
(This page is from my planning for this past year's NaNoWriMo. :) )
These are usually hand-written, as I'm a terrible writer on paper (as opposed to the computer), so I do all my brainstorming in class or when I'm not on the computer.
Between when I write the outline and when I write a scene, I tend to play the scene through at least once in my head. I also tend to think of the piece as a whole and work out whatever underlying themes I want to put in there. For instance, with Negative Confessions, the themes are self-sacrifice, self-punishment, and self-discovery. Woot woot for the pretentious part.
The playing through my head is the most fun and most important. The only problem is that I keep forgetting to write down dialogue pieces in a notebook, so I have to reconstruct later. Each run through changes, though, depending on my mood.
When I actually write the scene, I sort of just... go. I look at the rough scene summary I wrote, then just start writing. I have to be "in the mood" to do it, but I can usually work myself up into it, as long as I'm not distracted. I tend to plow through a scene at a time, just letting the dialogue happen (which is why it often becomes rather meandering if I'm not careful) and focusing more on the description. I'm a total description junkie, and I have, in the past, written whole short stories with no direct dialogue, and made it work.
I usually don't divide my longer pieces into parts. Negative Confessions is an exception, since I wrote it intending to post it, and I had chapter titles provided by the story title. I'm tempted to start dividing, though, because Negative Confessions is allowing me to edit as I go. I write two or three scenes, then edit one, then go ahead writing one scene and editing one scene.
I've found that my writing process makes it rather difficult for me to edit beyond fixing mistakes and sometimes smoothing out sentences. I've never majorly reworked a scene. I tend to just keep it as it came out, since it happened and wasn't formally constructed. I just don't know where to begin.
I'm more likely to scrap a scene completely while writing it than to rewrite it later. I like to edit as I go.
Aaand... I think that's it? If anybody wants to know more, feel free to ask questions. :)
Now, off to write the short drabbles I was planning on...
