on writing (III)

that's one too many dots for an elipses...

The writing process isn't anything to snuff about. Every writer has a different way of going about it, a certain pattern or scheme that works for them. The past couple years have seen a honing in and cementing of a particular pattern of my own. Contrary to popular belief, one doesn't just get a story idea, sit down, and hammer it out. There are exceptions, of course, like some of the modern masters who can churn out a book every 6-8 weeks. I'm no "modern master" and I don't pretend to be. Writing a story, at least for me, is one hell of a difficult thing to do. I had to find a way through the morass, and the process below sees me from one shore to the other.

(A) Scripting. I owe a lot to the person who came up with the "Snowflake Method." The Snowflake Method (as I perceive it) boils down to sketching out your story in such a way that you break it down into smaller and smaller components; the writing process becomes a sort of "fleshing-out" the components into a coherent narrative. This particular method is based on a process of architectural planning but translated into writing works of fiction. A good deal of the time I spend "writing" is actually spent, technically-speaking, "scripting": engaging my creative faculties to sketch out a story. The writing process is putting meat on the bare-bones script. The Snowflake Method, then, has both macro and micro developments; and this is also where I create my characters. Following scripting, my writing process focuses on the story scene-by-scene.

(B) Write the Scene. Here I focus on the flow of the scene: its setting, the movement of the characters, and the rough draft of the dialogue. I write by three major rules: (1) Cut, cut, CUT!, (2) Don't be afraid to MOVE! (as I have a tendency to become caught up details and description; a good struggle to have, but one that can threaten to lead the writing into a black hole), and (3) A plague on the house of adverbs (and on passive voice, too)!

(c) Rewrite the Scene. Once I have the first draft of the scene written, I rewrite it. All of it. Here I focus on description and detail: where should detail be cut, and where should it be added? I like the Rule of Three: as the Greeks taught, there is a mysterious perfection to the grouping of three, and when it comes to detail in a story, the Rule of Three is a good guide to how much is too much. When rewriting the scene, I also tweak the dialogue.

(d) Revise the Scene. On my third tramp through the scene, I focus on sentence structure, hunting down adverbs and unnecessary adjectives. Passive voice also becomes prey; active voice reads better, and passive voice should be used minimally. The third draft of the scene focuses, too, on the dialogue: here I flesh out the dialogue some more, showing rather than telling how characters feel, think, and gesture.

That's my writing process when it comes to scenes, and scenes build to create a story. The culmination of all the scenes results in the Rough Draft. Once I have the Rough Draft completed, I let it sit for a few weeks and return to it, keeping my eye out for four things: (1) Continuity, especially paying attention to little details, for readers are keen on pointing out discontinuity; (2) hunting for adverbs, unnecessary adjectives, and passive voice that I may have missed in the original writing; (3) cutting unnecessary scenes or dialogue; and (4) looking to enhance any themes, motifs, or symbols that rose out of the writing.

So that's how I do it.
It tends to work out pretty well for me.