Tips for Writers

Every writer has their own style of writing. There are many, and I’m sure they actually have names, but I’ve made my own names for some of them.

Wingers

- Writers who have a great concept and characters and just go for it to see what happens, they don’t plan their stories, they just write them and discover them as they write them.

Pro’s of this style: Allows the writer to discover his own story, keeping momentum and inspiration. Other styles might cause a lack of motivation due to becoming desensitised to the excitement of their own storyline, but Winger storyline’s retain their excitement, because there is always more for the writer to discover about their own world.

Con’s of this style: A lack of planning and forethought, often gives way to heavy amounts of writers block. This can often kill the idea before the story has reached a conclusion. More than that, sometimes this lack of a plan makes the story go off in different directions that ruin the flow, and forced character manipulations out of their personalities can become common as the writer attempts to force them onto some kind of path.

Who-Writers

- These are writers that follow similar principles as doctor who time travel (hence the name). Fixed points in time, but everything else is fluid. These are stories that are driven entirely by the characters. The ending has been decided, but even that’s capable of changing. There are particular events that need to happen for things to evolve, but otherwise, the evolving storyline happens in a heavily dynamic way. The Characters start to control all of the interactions,. and how things play out, depends on each characters motivations. This is an evolution storyline, where what happens between the fixed point, no one knows, and the author doesn’t so much have control of the characters, as he is simply writing what WOULD happen because of the nature of said characters.

Pro’s of this style: Evolving Who-Writer storyline’s can become incredibly deep and powerful. They allow for the same level of intrigue and excitement of a Wingers storyline, whilst also giving the story a structure. This structure lowers the chance of a writers block tremendously. The writer gets to discover the storyline, whilst still giving themselves a small level of control with their fixed points.

Con’s of this style: The writer ONLY controls the fixed points. Everything else is subject entirely to the personalities of the characters, because of this, things may happen that the author doesn’t actually want to happen, but those dedicated to this style would not change the event. Characters the Author thought important, might die early. Famous users of this style can look up George R Martin’s ‘Game of Thrones’ series. The biggest motivation destroyer of this style however, is the planning involved. While the storyline itself doesn’t need to be planned except for fixed points in time, EVERYTHING ELSE DOES. Every single character requires a back-story as in-depth as the main one, the entire world needs designing down to every nook and cranny, and this can take MONTHS of effort. This allows it to create a truly living and breathing world almost out of the writers control, and this amount of effort can be quite the de-motivator for casual writers.

Iron-Planners

- Iron-Planners are pretty easy to figure out. They plan everything. Every Character has their role, every reference is set up perfectly, and every motion and speech is practised. They plan every aspect of their storyline. They start with a concept, then the write characters, and then they write the ending. For Iron-Planners, the ending is the most important part of the story, not only does it aid the writing process to know exactly where and how their story will end, but it is also the fundamentals of all stories. A good story with a bad ending can ruin a readers experience, but a bad story with a great ending can lighten the review of the book in the readers eyes. The ending is the books final impression, and so Iron-Planners leave nothing to fate when crafting it. Nothing is fluid, and nothing is dynamic, once the final plan of the story is done, it will almost never change.

Pro’s of this style: Eliminates writers block entirely as the writer always knows exactly where they are going, and how to enact each scene. The planning allows them to play around with how the beginning lines up with the ending, allowing the writer to truly craft their storyline into a work of art, which each line and paragraph, placed particularly to have the right effect, or build up the right moments for future reveals. This is the most common style used by writers that are just starting trying to take their stories seriously.

Con’s of this style: Because of its rigidity, it is the most often abandoned when it comes to motivation. The lack of discovery for the writer themselves, leaves only the thrill of telling the story itself, which isn’t enough for some writers, and so the books can get entirely scrapped. They are the least exciting the write, and also, because of their popular notions, can be very easy for the reader to predict when reading, as certain mental tropes will always pop up in an attempt to set something up for later in the book.

Flitters

-Flitters are the easiest to describe, and the most common. This is because almost all writers will be a Flitter at some point in their writing career. Flitters jump between ALL OF THE ABOVE styles. Their stories are both planned, and sometimes dynamic. They might change entire scenes to conform to a characters personality better, or kill off characters they don’t want to get rid of, just because they know they can’t change it, whilst still planning the rest of the book firmly. And majority of the time, they will only plan heavy fixed points in time, with vague understanding of the bits in between, and wing those bits as best they can. This style is often used as a middle point between developing which style is really good for the writer, and moving out of the early stages of writing where they weren’t quite sure what they were doing. Because of this, it makes a fantastic learning and development platform.

Pro’s of this style: The flexibility allows them to not get hung up on their own style too much, and therefore they don’t compromise the potential of the piece they are writing. It’s a great way for writers to learn how to create more dynamic situations, by watching their characters interact with only a little control, allowing them to evolve their writing for future pieces.

Con’s of this style: It is the most prone to writers block. Despite the Iron-Planner aspect of planning things before they happen, the lack of rigidity in that planning, means they favour more Winging, than fluid evolution, this causes issues with how a scene might play out, confusion as to what is really going on, and these distracting issues can prove to be heavy de-motivators in writing, causing many a book idea to be scrapped.

I’m sure there are more, and I’m sure there are proper names for them, but these are the styles I’ve noticed mainly, and ones I myself have experimented with at times. :) Right now, I’m quite firmly the Iron-Planner.