I think a big reason why so many people who have an idea for stories never sit down to write it or never actually finish it is in part because of a fear they’re not doing it right. The idea may be ingenious, but they may still never put pen to paper because they’re worried they might screw it up by not knowing how to craft a book.
There is a bit of mysticism to writing, because it’s something that can’t be taught with absolute principles, like math. I’ve learned that every writer has their own process for how they go about composing a story, many of which can be unique.
So this week, I’m going to go over what works for me. Who knows? Maybe when someone sees how I write, they’ll think “That’s all it takes?” and start telling their own story.
When I first get an idea for a new story, I start to brainstorm, thinking about all the possible scenarios and paths this one idea can take me. I’m putting the idea through the ringer to see if it holds water, and can actually withstand the length of a story. If it’s passed this, I start going into the outlining process, assembling all these ideas into a loose plot, formulating the characters that would find themselves in a story like this, making sure their motivations are clear and consistent throughout the book, and so on. This process typically takes months, because I’m laying the foundation for the idea.
Once that’s done, we get to the actual writing.
As I wrote in last week’s entry, on my first day of writing a new story, I only write one page. This is done for a couple reasons. The first is because I know a story of any length is going to be a massive undertaking, and I want to give myself an early win by setting an easy goal to start off with. The second, which is going to seem like it contradicts the first, is that starting to write a story is anything but easy, and it takes me quite a while to write that first page. And it’s a draft!
Page one usually takes me the longest to write. I have the story outlined, and I’ve been thinking about the opening the most during the outlining process because it’s the first thing I’m going to have to do, and yet, it might still take me double the time to write this one page than any other page the rest of the book. The reason for this is the first page sets the tone for the rest of the story. While I know I’m going to revise the story constantly, I don’t want to just throw something together for the first page as a placeholder because each subsequent page is going to be built off of what I do here. It’s critical that I achieve the feel I want, because otherwise the rest of the book is going to feel off, and it’s going to lead to massive revisions in every other draft.
That’s why I spend so long on page one of the first draft. Investing more time here in the initial stage saves me a mountain of time for the rest of the writing process.
Next week, I’ll go into the effects this step has on all subsequent pages.