My Writing Process

Hi all,

Thought I would share a little on how my writing process works.

I keep an ongoing list of story ideas so when I'm ready to write I always have somewhere to start.

I start a story by brainstorming ideas, exploring who the characters are and where the conflicts are.

Once I have a few pages of notes I start outlining and creating plot points.

I take these key plot points write them out in a Word document and I start writing using each plot point like a guide point. I start at one and write to the next. I don't always start at the beginning either.

I am always surprised how much I discover while writing that I didn't come up with while planning and outlining. I am always happy to embrace these new ideas as long as they are true to the story I'm trying to tell.

I like to think as the first draft in two parts. The first is a really rough "outline draft." I write was quickly and furiously as I can trying to capture the story by its tale without stopping to worry about spelling or grammar errors, or if it is even legible to anyone but me. Part two is cleaning up what I wrote in my first draft making sure I have everything I wanted to say and seeing if anything new that I came up with still "gels" with everything else. I look at it like carving a statue out of a piece of stone. Each draft is like a pass over the stone, refining and refining, letting the story take shape until you end up with a piece of art.

When I'm done with the first draft I usually show it to people and try to get some feedback. When this is done I go back and write the third and usually final draft with any needed corrections.

This is my writing process, what's yours? Please feel free to share.

Writing Update

I'm currently working on yet another draft of Click You're Dead. I've got feedback on an earlier draft and making a few changes.
I've hit a few unforeseen roadblocks, however. I did an outline for the story but left a few things out in the open that I thought I could fill in along the way. This was a big mistake! I've decided to sweep these problems under the rug for now and try to take this as a learning experience. I'm definitely an outline writer, I need those little guide points along the way or the story starts to fall apart.
I still think its a good story, even better than the last one. I'm writing fiction too, and I think I have the right to take a little creative license.
Anywho, the final draft should be done soon. Then off to the next project.

Writing Update

I'm currently working on the third draft of Click You're Dead. A short story about a photographer.

Progress Report

I started on a third draft of a short story I'm working on today. I took a little break between drafts to brush up on some grammar and punctuation basics. The story is about a family that goes camping in a remote area of the Pacific Northwest and run into some trouble with another camper.

In this draft I'm hoping to get the word count down from 6,500 to around 5,000 or less. I also need to come up with a title. I'm currently using "Bad Camper" as a place holder, but I need something better. Other than that I'm just going to try and apply some of what I learned from reading "The Elements of Style" and really strip down everything that isn't important to the story and polish everything that is.