I'm just going to talk about my creative writing process because my academic writing process is very cut dry and cliche... so i'll save that for the essay.
1) Idea
a. Lots of things give me ideas it can be things like songs or something my friends do and sometimes it
can be something in another book that sparks an idea
2) Outline
a. I outline by sequencing events and character emotions.
b. I outline on paper, by typing, or use PostIts on the wall
i. Lately I’ve been using my dorm wall to move around and add things to my second series outline.
It’s so easy and I love it because I can easily move things around or take things out.
3) Scenes/ Extras
a. I usually type out key scenes (like death scenes or new characters) after outlining
b. Most of these scenes are nowhere near where I’m writing… but I still like to write them
c. The extras are things I’ll need to remember while writing it’s also things that I make up like religions or
history for sections that give it more depth (sometimes I just like to make stuff up and never use half
of it)
4) Writing
a. When I write I always have music on… there’s just something about music that helps me write better.
Sometimes it gives me ideas as I write and other times it’s just to block out noise around me
5) First-Revisions
a. First revisions is where I run through to make sure characters and plot line up
i. I recently finished the first draft of my book and I’m running first edits on it and I found that one of
the main characters attitudes and speech patterns don’t match up with that character later on in
the book. So I have to fix the earlier version to match him up with the rest of the book
b. This is also where I try to catch misspellings and fix contractions in the narration. I only use
contractions in character’s speech patterns and even then only a few of the main characters use
contractions.
c. This is also where I can add in subplots or change plots if I need
d. I also remove boring and “space filler” scenes.
i. Space filler scenes being ones that were a good idea at the time but just add to the page count
now.
6) Second Revision
a. I use this stage to start honing in on characters. I want my characters to be constant throughout the
whole series and each one has certain things that they do that I like to make apparent and I usually go
through and add those or bring them to the front in this stage.
b. This is also where I start to add important details I might have left out before (such as character
descriptions, or locations and appearances of places)
7) Third Revision on (I usually run 7-15 rounds of edits)
a. The next few rounds of revisions I work on sentence structure and tightening up the sentences and
paragraphs.
b. I drop qualifiers (ex. rather, a little, a bit)
c. I remove “that” when it is unnecessary although I tend to leave it in speech again for speech pattern
purposes
d. I also try to make sure I don’t filter scenes (by filter I mean describe it by what a character sees
instead of narrating it from the omniscient point of view)
e. I also make sure that descriptions I can show I show instead of telling
f. I also give out a copy to friends so they can read through and give me feedback along with mistakes I
overlook
8) Final Draft
a. After I’m happy and comfortable with all my revisions I go back and make sure that it is all in
manuscript format
b. I also give it one more read through to make sure I’m totally happy with it (if I’m not then it’s not my
final draft and I do more revisions)
9) Publishing
a. This sometimes can take just as long as getting to the final draft… it all depends on where you send it
out to and if they require a Query Letter first.
This is my writing process I use now because I’ve had about seven years to perfect it and get rid of useless things that didn’t work, like writing out scenes in notebooks first. I’ve also added in a lot of steps. When I first started writing I would go right from having an idea to writing it chronologically. But I soon found that I had too many good ideas that I lost because I didn’t outline or write them down. My editing style has also evolved A LOT! Mostly from practice… practice… practice… and lots more practice.
