A lot has been written about the process of writing – how you go from initial glimmer of an idea to the final draft – and for good reason. It’s one of the things that most bugs new writers, and most fascinates many more experienced writers. When you’re starting out, you wonder if you’re doing it right, and when you’ve been at it a while you’re curious about what processes other writers use.
For those just starting out, the question of whether or not you’re doing it right, whilst valid and, to some extent, unavoidable, is a question that can never be totally answered.
There are as many different answers as there are writers. We all do it a little differently from the next person, and we’re all right. It’s getting to the final draft that matters, not the route we take.
Having said that, there’s something very reassuring about reading about the writing process of someone who’s further along the road to success than you are. At the very least you can, maybe, learn to streamline your own process if you’re lucky enough to find someone who’s work pattern is already similar to your own. At the very best you can discover that other more widely published writers take a route that’s just as meandering and repetitive as your own. Very reassuring.
The important thing is that you don’t let another writer’s writing process totally derail your own.
This has happened to me in the past. I’ve read a workflow that sounds really good, efficient, clean and organised. I’ve thought it was something I just had to try. I’ve abandoned my own process and adopted the new one – with mostly disastrous results. Disastrous because I’ve had to study how they did it to make it work for myself, so I’ve wasted precious writing time. I’ve had to, in some instances, recopy notes already written in order to make them fit into a new pattern, and I’ve even had to get new software and learn how to use that before I could proceed. And in the end, just about every time, I’ve eventually abandoned the new process and gone back to the one that is uniquely mine.
Just occasionally I come across a writing process/workflow that really does help. In case you’re curious, the best ones I’ve found recently are the totally fabulous writing app Scrivener (which all mac users who write really ought to have, and which I was so sure would be the right one for me I actually bought a mac so I could use it), and which I now use for all my writing, the diary system used by David Hewson, and the notebook used by Antony Johnston.
I’ve always made copious notes about what I’m writing, including plot progression ideas, character sketches, motivations, questions to myself and my characters, reasons and consequences, and I’m more inclined to follow Mr. Johnson’s method of having one notebook on the go at a time, rather than a dedicated notebook for each separate long project/novel. I’ve never tried MacJournal, as used by Mr. Hewson but I am tempted by his latest idea of the private, online novel blog diary and may give that a go.
These two examples of successful author’s processes help rather than derail my own writing process because they expand on methods I already use – namely the notebook and Scrivener. With my notebook, I have tended, in the past, to leave my notes in there and eventually lose them in the plethora of random addresses, phone numbers and shopping lists that also get noted down. But if I adopt either the online diary or the extended use of Scrivener as described by Messrs Hewson and Johnston I should, theoretically at least, not lose track of my notes again.
I don’t think I’ll ever be totally cured of my curiosity towards other writer’s working methods, but hopefully I’ve learned over the years what works best for me and can now pick and choose which new methods I take on board.
The very best advice? By all means read how others do it, and learn from those who’ve gone before, but ultimately follow your own instincts and do what feels best for you. And never, never, ditch a working method half way through a project unless your present writing process just isn’t working and you’re starting again anyway.
