Wintermist's Writing Process · 9:47pm Jul 19th, 2016
So, this month, Megapone decided to kick off a Fetish Fanfic Fapstravaganda, introduced here. This was a very good idea! It has admittedly tempted me into spending a few days on a one-shot, which is ticking away currently. As part of the event, Megapone set up this advice thread, where they give some very solid advice. So the td;dr here is: I agree with everything Megapone said.
That said, I thought I'd share my personal approach to writing.
We can't talk about writing without talking about discipline! I've found a word count to be the single best tool to improve my writing. Even a small word count quota gets me to sit down and start, and once I start, it's easier to keep going. Discipline keeps me writing when I'm stuck. Inspiration is fickle, but a word count can't be fooled! I hit at least 500 words every day, even if it's trash that'll be rewritten later. Sometimes I ignore the main story I'm writing, and write other little bits that may never see the light of day. That's okay. Keeping to the commitment is the important thing.
Okay, fine: so I can't sleep until I've written, and I have a document open. Now what?
Well, the way I set up a story is to write down anything I can think of that I'd like to see happen. These events can be major, like a massive confrontation, or as small as a character making a pun. I keep adding to the list whenever something occurs to me. Once I have a few entries, I sort them into the order I expect them to happen. This fight has to come before this reconcilliation, etc. That sorted list contains my checkpoints. They're not graven in stone; entries come in, or get kicked out as they don't make sense anymore. But whenever I'm about to write a new chapter, if I have an idea for where I am, I go with it. If not, I pick out the next checkpoint, and write that. If I realise there's something that has to happen before I can move to the next checkpoint, then that's the thing to write. It's like a safety net, or a reserve tank for inspiration when I have none.
So that's for structure. How about the actual scenes? The one thing I always watch out for, and try to catch myself doing, is writing things in a disinterested way. Twilight is very turned on! How can you tell? Because the narration just told you so. No, that's rubbish - so I try to think of all the ways that someone who's very turned on feels, and acts, and write those. The tightness in the chest, the hotness of the skin, the scents and tastes. If I do it right, I don't need to say someone's turned on. Everything shows it.
If the action seems to be happening in a vacuum, I remind myself to ground it. What about the current location matters? Does the thump of hips knock books off shelves, does an open window let a breeze in that chills the sweat on skin? Will the person associate the scents and sounds of this moment with what's happening? Obviously, I'm not going to pan the camera away from the action to thoughtfully remark, 'And on a shelf across the room, a jug of lemonade was sitting'. No one cares about that. But locations should matter. The people involved should matter, and any two individuals should react to each other a little differently than any other two.
Writing is fun, on average. Sometimes it's really fun. Sometimes, it's a slog. But all taken together, I love to do it, even when I'm not feeling in the mood and end up procrastinating by writing a blog about how I write.
Thanks for the insight into your creative muse, Wintermist!
I used to do a similar thing, by keeping all my miscellaneous notes in text docs based on rough chronological order. But, I never really organized things quite well enough to be as effective as it could have been.
Always great to hear how others write!
This was really interesting to read and actually answers some questions I keep meaning to ask but never do out of not wanting to bother you.
Your work ethic has always impressed me ever since I first stumbled upon it and it's cool to have further insight into how you go about producing what you do.
I'll probably keep coming back to this post, along with Megapone's advice post, as I further continue to attempt to write what I'd like to see written.