Writing Method

Is there is a method that fits you best as a writer?

So recently, I was thinking about whether there is a method that would improve the quality of my creative writing. For example, Stephen King advocates writing at least 1,000 words every day, no slacking. Have a clear period set aside when you can write, treat it like a job... then I came across this article, which gives more-or-less the opposite advice:

I was wondering what you guys think about your method or approach to writing. Have you found one that just seems to work for you? Are you like me; often trying different approaches for different projects? Have you come across advice about this topic that you personally found inspiring or thought-provoking?

In short, this is a place to discuss any methods you've tried or that you use to guide your writing, and any constructive thoughts on different approaches you may have heard about from different authors.

edited 17th Aug '16 1:56:40 AM by editerguy

I'm definitely on the slow side of things, I've come to accept that it's going to take years for me to finish. 100-250 words a day can add up over the months.

What I've been doing is coloring my text based on levels of completeness. Right now I'm working on my "grey text", which is pretty much a bare bones accounts or events and dialogue. Rewriting what I already have down results in better quality even when not much time has passed (I rewrote the introduction even though I'm not done with the first draft yet).

For a rough draft, they're usually guidelines or out lines for my story then I write them altogether and after that I revise and change some things that I don't like. Now suppose if I had a webcomic then I have write script for for it. Just like my other process, I do a out line first, a rough draft later then finalized one which is my script.

I admire your patience, I often get frustrated at how long it takes me to complete something

I usually don't write too much per day either, and I go through lots of drafts. I don't like editing my work too much until I've finished a first draft.

Interesting what you say about grey text (did you make that terminology up?). I imagine that is good for getting out your ideas for scenes without agonising over exactly how to express things? I admit I tend to agonise over the exact words to use sometimes, which can grind my first draft to a halt.

Do you write chronologically or do you skip to different parts of the outline?

edited 18th Aug '16 4:23:50 AM by editerguy

Writing Fiction for Dummies says there are four types of writers out there:

The first are those that just blaze ahead, writing out whatever they can without worrying about whether it's good or not. They don't do any planning beyond bare minimum, and just write in hopes the story will develop organically.

The second are those that write a little, then go back and edit it before moving on to the next section. A little more structure, but still fairly freeform.

The third are those that draw up a loose outline of what will be in their story. They will have a plot laid out, some characters already developed, and some idea about how scenes will transition from one to another. The outline can be changed as the need arises, but it is still there.

The fourth are those that make a rigid outline of exactly what they want in their story. There are few deviations from that outline, and everything has been laid out.

I like to think I'm mostly a type 1; I just write out the story and don't do any serious editing until I am done and have a hard copy in my hand. It just seems easier when working with a computer.

I am a complete type 3. Without a loose knowledge of how things are going to progress, I give up on writing the moment a creative burst ends and I have to connect things so my next big idea can show up.

EDIT: although I may be evolving into a type 4, since my concept of the story is becoming more complex and solid with time. I guess I will know for sure which type I am if one of my characters decides to derail the plot.

edited 18th Aug '16 6:05:37 AM by EternaMemoria

All of my outlines of events are very loose mental outlines. I keep written notes about characters and locations, not events. I know the big events when I go in and fill in the details when I get to that scene, and whether other scenes will be needed right afterwards to get to the next big event. And by 'fill in the details', I mean that I go one word at a time, and keep tweaking until I feel I've nailed what I'm trying to say. Between my job and college, I might get about two sentences done on an average day. Sometimes I spend days tweaking the same part of a single sentence, sometimes I get big creative highs and plow through several hundred words in one sitting.

I'm always thinking about how future scenes are going to play out, but it's more daydreaming. I don't try to write ahead due to the very incremental way I develop themes and subtext. And it's not always just a matter of the feel being a bit different- when I was rewriting the first chapter of my current project, it gained a major undercurrent of indignance, which now drives a lot of major decisions the protagonist makes later on.

I will never be one of those super-disciplined writers who can consistently 'just write' hundreds or thousands of words in one sitting regardless of mood or energy level, and be able to come back to it more often than not and find words that merely need revision, not deletion. But that's okay. If I get stalled, 90% of the time it's because I'm missing some bit of subtext- not flat-out not knowing what happens next -and I know from experience that if I try to ignore it and write around it for the sake of continuing, all of my subtext (which plays off of each other) is going to unravel and I'll have a huge mess on my hands that always proves completely unsalvageable.

I never really 'wrote' by myself until this year. It's really taught me that all advice about the writing and storycrafting process, aside from 'get words written', comes down to the individual, and should be taken as a thing to test and see if it works for you and your situation, not as an absolute. The only bad practices in storycrafting are the ones that don't work for your situation or produce results that dissatisfy both you and your readers, whether you're a journalist with deadlines to keep, or a simple hobbyist.

So what does that make me? A Type 3 without any physical 'drawing out' of the events?

edited 18th Aug '16 8:07:58 AM by CrystalGlacia

Possibly. I started that way, but I've found that as my daydreaming started to build up into a three-part saga that spans multiple milennia it became impossible to write the third part of the saga before the others like I wanted to without an outline.

All of my stories are also part of a large world, with a big cast of around fifty named characters that are planned to pass in and out of various stories.

Maybe I don't experience many problems with daydreaming about scenes further in the story or in other related stories because I know I can write it later, or because I've successfully convinced myself that I need to finish my current project first (a story that is explicitly for practice), or because I know that my brain can't pull off switching gears like that due to how I do subtext and theme development, or because I'm just that into this character and his story. Could be a mix, but everyone's different, huh?

edited 18th Aug '16 8:54:03 AM by CrystalGlacia

: mostly chronological.

Count me as another type 3.

@editerguy: I'm not sure I'd call it patience (in fact writing a thousand words in one sitting sounds like it would take a lot of that), but thank you. And yes, that's exactly what it's for (I probably decided to make each draft a different color because I'm a bit synesthesic).

In do that sometimes you know. Ain't half bad to be honest.

Well, I'm either type 2 or type 3, whichever it is. I do write however the plot goes and then edit it back every so often for polishing which would put me as type 2, but I come up with ideas for plot progression and related scenes just as I go through the day and I have a good enough memory that I can note it all down, which means that anything longer I am writing with at least a loose outline pretty much all the time which would make me a type 3. I do get involved with smaller projects that require a type 4 approach sometimes, though; when it happens it's stuff that requires content made by others to be in with no Hollywood-style changes but they simply like my style of writing more than their own which is why they ask rather than writing it themselves.

In the end it doesn't really matter to me which it is, for as long as it works for me, so that's that.

Mostly type two and type 3 with occasional fits of type 1 and half-arsed attempts at being a type 4 - all dependent on my mood.

I have an idea of where things are going and get ideas for scenes/events/dialogue etc, which I put into my notes file. These snippets can range from a few lines outlining the idea to an almost script-like exchange to a properly-written full scene and they get added into the narrative, and fleshed out if necessary, when I get to the point where they fit.

As to volume: very sporadic. Sometimes I write shit-tons in a day, other times it'll take weeks to write that much or I'll go weeks without writing anything at all.

I've written as a type 1 and a type 3.

@Novis

Sorry, I meant to reply earlier but kept getting distracted by tedious-but-important IRL stuff.

Writing a thousand words a day was actually pretty exhilarating for me, but yes very frustrating at times because I often got stuck at, say, 900 words. The biggest problem came afterwards when I tried to salvage what I'd rushed out into something worth reading. I appreciate the 'slow but steady' approach more now.