Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m about to describe my writing process in five steps. Be ready to be amazed at the peek into the insanity of my mind. For those looking for advice, this probably applies more to Flash Fiction and Short Story writing rather than novel writing. Enjoy!
1. Come up with idea/hook/punchline. This is ultimately what the story is going to be about. These ideas come to me in the car, in the shower, in bed, or basically anywhere paper is no where to be found. The key is to keep saying the idea in your head to remember and writing it down as soon as possible.
2. Get an idea of at least one character in you mind, though two characters is preferred. You need someone for your protagonist to interact with after all. Bonus points for a character that is as far away from your own personality as possible. This just makes things more fun.
3. Start writing. Get your idea/hook/punchline down first and work up to it. Don’t worry about grammar or sentence structure or anything like that. Just capture your ideas and construct what you think will happen in the story.
4. Revise. Go back and read what you have written, no matter how painful it is to you. Your reader and really yourself will thank you for this. This is needed to really polish your work. No one is perfect the first time. I guarantee you even Neil Gaiman does more than one draft.
5. Sit back and wait for feedback. This is the part that kills me. I have just finished a piece and put out a little piece of myself for the world to see. Will they like it? Will they laugh at me? Who knows? This is why I like comments and feedback so much. You never know what they audience will think.
As you will notice there is no outline or much planning in the above process. I’m simply to lazy for that. This process does work for me, though. How about you?
The Struggling Writer 