WRITING
I strongly recommend you my blog post titled THE CONCEPT before reading this.
So, you have a concept for a book project and you followed up on that concept. Wonderful. The next phase is writing. Now, every writer has their own procedure when they write. I have grouped these procedures into five major categories.
Write-As-You-Go:
These are writers who will only write when they have inspiration. Writing that comes from inspiration is usually the ‘best’ kind, relatively speaking. ‘Best’ in the sense that it comes from a place of passion and the writer feels a (deep) connection with his/her work. This connection eases the flow of material during writing, and it is more enjoyable and fulfilling. However, the downside with write-as-you-go writers is that no inspiration means no writing and this could be a problem if other factors are involved like deadlines, for example. Also, if inspiration never returns, then their book project may never be completed.
Power-Through:
These are writers who have a concept for a book project but have no inspiration to help them follow through with their concept. Regardless, they force themselves to write. Power-through writers may enjoy this process because of the feeling of adventure that comes with clawing their way through the dark maze of zero inspiration. The disadvantage with power-through writing is that it offers a less efficient use of time and energy. The writing feels forced and sometimes, a reader can detect this.
Amphibious:
These are writers who are both write-as-you-go and power-through and they share the pros and cons of both types of writers.
This was me in Celestial Crisis, Book 4 of The Soulless Ones series.
Plagiarist:
Plagiarism is the act of taking someone else’s work and passing it off as yours. Plagiarists are thieves and shunned by the writing communities. Plagiarism is punishable by the law.
Planner:
These are writers who will not start writing until they have a complete story outline for their book project. They do not necessarily stick to the outline when writing, but the outline serves as both a foundation and a guide for their book project.
I am a planner and I highly endorse this process.
Planning keeps the writer honest beyond the excitement of just having a concept for a book project. If you cannot even have a story outline for your book, then chances are you may not be ready to start writing. If you still choose to proceed without a plan, then best be prepared to experience inefficiencies with your project. You may even wind up not completing your book project. As cliché as it may sounds, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Disadvantage? It does not offer any guarantee that your writing will be without any difficulties.
A planner will not start writing until he or she has every chapter written down, accompanied by a few sentences to indicate what that chapter will be about. Like I mentioned earlier, planners do not necessarily have to stick with the plan, but the plan offers a great sense of direction for the project. I averaged about 28 chapters in every plan for The Soulless Ones series but ended up with more than 35 chapters for each book in the series, as well as a story which was much better than the initial plan.
Sometimes, you can have a plan and somewhere down the line, you find yourself morphing into any of the other types of writers. This is because your story outline is just a skeleton. Adding flesh to that skeleton is another matter in itself. A planner most likely becomes amphibious if he or she is experiencing some difficulty with the book project.
I switched from a planner to an amphibious writer when writing Celestial Crisis, Book 4 of The Soulless Ones series. It was my most difficult book to write in the series. As for the rest of the series, I remained 100% a planner.
Planning works for both single novels and novel series. I did not write out an entire plan for The Soulless Ones series before I started writing. However, I did write a plan for every novel in the series before I started writing each novel.
Writer’s block is the inability to proceed with writing or the condition of not knowing what to write. It is the scourge of the writing universe and we will talk more about this in another blog post. I have never experienced writer’s block and I strongly believe this is due to the fact that I am planner.
Let’s say you completed the first draft of your manuscript. What next? Stay tuned for Part III of this series.
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