Somebody on social media tried to tell me how writing works, and I thought it was weird. I feel like I have a pretty good idea at this point how it works. But it got me thinking: how does it work? More to the point, this was in the context of fiction writing being a non-deterministic, unquantifiable process. Writers around the world and throughout time have wanted fiction writing to be predictable and measurable, but we all have learned, for various reasons, it just isn’t.
If you write 1,000 words a day, you technically will have a novel in 50-ish (depending what reckoning you use for a novel’s length) days, but will that be a finished novel? Almost certainly no (there are plenty of notable exceptions, of course), and that rests on the idea that you can maintain that pace consistently.
But let’s say you do hit that mark every day. How many of those words are the right words? And how do you know? More to the point, do you feel good about those words, ready to engrave them in stone for all time?
Writing is strange in the sense that its very name indicates a simplicity in the act: typing one word after another. It sounds so easy!
But when I talk about “writing,” I’m talking about the writing process, or what it takes to create a finished piece of writing and how that works.
First things first, it’s essential to note writing works differently for everyone because everyone is different. Obviously. That’s part of the difficulty of learning to write: we all have to learn what works for us in achieving our own goals. Also, goals vary, and any process that helps you achieve your goals is 100-percent irrevocably valid.
That said, there are some constants in the writing process because, despite all of us being unique snowflakes, we’re all snowflakes, so we have that in common, which is cool.
These are parts of the writing process we all have in common, the unavoidable truths we all have to face to produce a finished piece of writing. My deepest concern is that, in this time when anyone can just rattle out a story and publish it in minutes, young, beginner writers deny themselves vital parts of the writing process. What’s more, I’m concerned there’s a broad, too-literal understanding of what writing is and what the writing process entails. There is one view of writing that is as simple as putting one word after another until you get to the end of the story and then moving on. If that aligns with your goals and provides everything you want out of writing, okay, but for me, as a reader, I look for the writers who spend more time and energy on their writing than that. As a writer, I’m chasing a story that outlives me, and I know that, by simply putting one word after another, I will never produce it.
Let me explain how writing works (for me).
The Idea
You have to start somewhere, and that starting line is an idea you just can’t get out of your head. It’s an idea that isn’t just neat or cool or fun or whatever. It’s an idea that follows you into the quiet, dark places as well as the loud, vibrant places. It’s a constant distraction that’s impossible to ignore even when the love of your life is talking to you. Your brain will give you breaks from time to time, but it will return to this idea, and you’ll be powerless to stop it.
This idea is a problem for you, and you have to do something about it.
We’re not looking for a whole story here. We’re looking for a seam you noticed on a wall while walking home from work. We’re looking for a loose thread on a friend’s sweater. We’re looking for a weird, seaweed-tangled rope leading off the beach into the lake. Something that’s easy to miss but impossible to ignore once you’ve seen it. And it calls to you. Over and over. Even if you’re miles away.
Remember this: writing is a recursive exploration (emphasis added because it’s important and I’ll get to it later). You see something out of place, and you decide to tug on it just to see what happens. You keep exploring that idea, and you find other ideas underneath or within or along the path. The confusion in this metaphor is because writing isn’t linear. It’s multi-dimensional, and it’s confusing af. If it’s difficult for you, that’s because it’s supposed to be. If you struggle, that’s how you know you’re doing it right.
I share this a lot, but watch this video with George Saunders and think about his process for taking this simple, boring, one-sentence idea and developing it into something deep, complex, and interesting.
Important note: lots of writers get stuck because they wait for inspiration to strike. You’ll note the word “inspiration” is nowhere else in this post about how writing works. That’s because, if you’re walking around everyday waiting for it to strike, it might not. Inspiration is like a car crash in your mind. Neurons collide (this probably isn’t neurologically accurate, but I’d appreciate you neuroscientists sticking with me anyway) and your brain has a unique thought that could be a story. And you find it really interesting. Okay, but you can increase the traffic, conjure a storm, or just fling cars at each other (in your mind, of course), which is to say you can generate ideas.
The Chair
Do you have one? Good. Put your butt in it and face the keyboard and page.
Look, I’m more hippy-dippy, artsy-fartsy about writing than many writers, but one simple truth remains: to write, you have to write.
For me, though, “write” doesn’t necessarily mean “write.” And when I write “chair,” I don’t literally mean “chair.” See? Hippy-dippy. Let me explain.
Researching your subject matter on the internet is writing. Reading books in your genre is writing. Reading books outside of your genre is writing. Going to places in the real world where your story is set (or places like your setting) is writing. Talking with your partner about your story is writing. Outlining is writing. Editing your writing is writing. Rewriting is writing. Brainstorming ideas and jotting them down on your phone while you’re at your kid’s soccer practice is writing. Sketching your characters is writing. Having hypothetical, imaginary conversations with them is writing. Making a cup of coffee before you go sit down to write is writing. Making a playlist of music that would be the soundtrack of your story’s movie is writing.
It’s all part of the work that you need to do to make this written thing. Whatever your process, every part of it matters. If your mind is working the idea, it’s process. Actually putting words on the page is only part of the writing process, and in some ways, it’s not even the most important part. It’s just the most necessary part in the way that anything with a diagram needs to be built to take physical form.
But you are not a tradesperson who is making things for someone to use. You are not making an object to fulfill a purpose. You’re an artist who is making art, and making art requires more than your hands. It requires your mind, heart, and soul, and that stuff doesn’t come out onto the page easily. It fights you. It doesn’t want to come out. So you gotta do what you gotta do, and that’s your process.
Writing works because you do the work, whatever that means, and doing it takes the discipline and willpower to be alone with your thoughts for a while until you have achieved some measure of progress, whether that’s a bajillion words written today or a conceptual breakthrough as you understand why a character does what they do in your story, which can happen as you’re looking for bananas with the perfect ripeness at the grocery store, trying desperately to tune out your screaming children in the back seat, or drifting off to sleep after a long day (which is just the worst because then you have to wake up and write it down or you’ll definitely forget it; heed this: never go to sleep with an idea in your head. You will not remember it in the morning.).
As a writer, you live the writing process, every minute of every day. Putting your butt in the chair is a mental state, and you don’t literally need to put your butt in a chair to write. You do need to literally write, of course, but the other work in the writing process counts, too.
This is why writing takes as long as it takes. Writing a certain number of words is predictable. The time it will take you to sort through all of your story’s complexities, solve all of its problems, and make it a fully realized piece of written artwork is not.
Just beware complacency. You can’t think a story into existence. You do need discipline and willpower to put your fingers on the keys (or scribble that pen on paper, if that’s your thing). At some point, you do need the skills of the trade: your fingers jumping on the keyboard. Find a balance between doing only what is necessary and doing everything that is worth doing when living with your story.
The Draft
I’m not a fan of the shitty first draft, but many writers are. The truth here, however, is you need something to work with, and the only way to get it is to make it. You need to literally put your butt in the chair.
This takes as long as it takes, too. The warning I offer to the shitty first draft folks is that telling a story is a process of laying out a series of events and decisions that are connected to each other. What this means is, if you don’t understand act one, you can’t build an act two or three (or four or five) that rests on it. It can feel like a paradox. You want to push forward and write your story, but you have to go backwards to understand it first.
But also don’t spin your wheels on act one forever because you do need to get to subsequent acts to make The Draft.
Look, making The Draft is messy, and this is where the most variance of process happens between writers. Find the process that works for you and the story you’re telling, and hold onto that for your life. If it’s working, it’s working. If it’s not working, try something else. If it was working and now it’s not, don’t beat your head against a wall and don’t abandon what worked. Try to figure out why it’s not working. What changed? Can you change it back?
The one constant of The Draft is that nothing is constant. You’re working on a story that’s continually evolving, and time is always ticking away, and you’re always changing as a person. Once you feel like you’ve locked something in, something else will change, and it may affect everything with devastating consequences.
This is normal. Every writer struggles. The struggle means you’re doing something worthwhile. Keep going until you have The Draft.
Once you have The Draft, you can celebrate a little bit, but maybe save the fireworks. The Draft is a checkpoint, not an end. You still have a lot to do.
The Revision
Remember when I told you to remember writing is recursive exploration. That’s relevant here.
The existence of a draft doesn’t mean you’re finished. This truth is dependent on your goals, of course, but it’s true for the vast majority of writers, even if they don’t intend to publish (but especially if they do).
A draft grants a writer perspective. Once you have the whole thing, you can finally see the whole thing (duh). With that perspective, it’s time to question and re-evaluate everything, whether you sharpen and hone sections, amputate parts for replacement, or torch the whole thing and rewrite it, every first draft is a roughly formed hunk of clay. With the revision, you will give your story more definition and clarity and better achieve your vision.
The reason this step is important is because, almost always, any draft is not what you think it is. You may think it’s what you wanted it to be, but it’s not. Do you know why? Because writing is learning. You learned a ton creating The Draft. Did you really think, with all of that struggle, you didn’t learn anything? Silly goose.
The Draft isn’t as good as you think it is, and you’re now a better writer than you think you are, so now it’s time to take advantage of those truths and work on revisions so you can get your draft closer to what you want it to be.
Perhaps more important, as you revise your draft, you will have more ideas. Revision will make your writing better, and as you bring it closer to what you wanted it to be in the first place, you’ll find something comes into sync in a way it just wasn’t before: the way you see your writing and the way the world sees your writing will be the same (okay, not exactly, but it will be more similar, and that’s the goal). The trouble is you don’t know how the world sees your writing because you’re just little ol’ lonesome you. To find out, you need to do something really, really scary.
The Share
Writers are not bestowing their brilliance upon a populace. Writers are sharing ideas and inviting others to share their own ideas. Writing is dialogic.
This part is terrifying at first and always anxiety-inducing for many, but it’s vital because you have to put your writing out there and see if it’s generating the kind of conversation you want it to. The only way to really know if the boat you built is sea-worthy is to put it on the water. Share your writing with friends, loved ones, other readers you trust. Ask them to send you feedback or just talk to them about it. Hire beta readers if you need to. Get that outside perspective because, thus far, you’ve been in a vacuum with your writing, and you haven’t been stuck in there with it; it’s been stuck in there with you (yes, you’re the real monster, like Dr. Frankenstein). It wants to get out. It needs to get out. It needs to be seen by other eyes.
What if you don’t want to publish? Okay, but how else are you going to know if your writing is doing what you actually think it’s doing, and does that matter to you? If you never share it, will you wonder years from now if the thing you made is actually as pretty as you thought it was? Will you think maybe you missed something? Will you wonder if there were other ideas you could have incorporated if you’d broken that vacuum seal and gotten help to see what you couldn’t see?
If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then share your writing with someone. It’s part of the writing process because it helps you gain perspective. It helps focus your lens. It helps.
The Break
It’s not your manuscript. It’s you. No offense, but you look tired. You need to take a break. Put the thing in a folder somewhere for a week, a month, a season, whatever you need to feel disassociated from it. You need to figure out who you are without it. The disassociation here is key. You are not your writing.
This can be done in tandem with The Share, of course, because it will take people time to read your writing. But also, don’t feel like you can’t keep working on your writing while someone has it in their possession to read.
The point of The Break is that, thus far, you’ve been wandering in a dense forest, trying to familiarize yourself with all of the flora and fauna, like Darwin, cataloguing every new species with fascination. Now you need to get out of that forest so you can better see the whole thing. You need to look at your writing as something that exists independent of you, and the only way to do that is to give yourself time away from it.
What do you do during the break? Sure, write something else, but don’t forget about the project you’re on a break from. It should continually hum in your mind, because the point of The Break is, even though you’re seeing other people, the characters in your first love are still a part of your life. You’re still living with that writing. You still love it.
Alternatively, live your life, friend. Go experience the world. Travel somewhere. Give your family and friends some much-needed attention. Watch some TV. Play some video games. Lay out by the pool. Order a whole damn pizza and eat it yourself. Whatever living means to you, live.
We writers too often deny that part of it all. To be a good writer, you need to read and write, yes, but you also need to live. Do that.
The Return
Come back to your writing. See it anew. It hasn’t changed while you were away, but you will see it differently. Things will feel out of place, but that’s the way you left them. Promise. Put them where you thought you left them. Correct. Adjust. Fine-tune. But also revise and rewrite. Use any feedback from your readers that is useful. Discard what isn’t.
Read it. Print it out and read it again. Check your feedback again. Anything resonating with you now that wasn’t before?
Is this the thing you wanted it to be? If not (and it almost always is something else), is this thing something you’re proud of? Is this thing good? Is it great? Do you worry that, if you make any other changes, you will actually be making it worse? Are you like Dr. Frankenstein and you’re seeing your creation’s left hand is kinda small and out of proportion and you think, “gee, I should maybe find him a bigger hand,” but he’s like, “nah, Dad, this is fine”?
Have you fallen out of love with it?
Are you ready to love something else?
The only questions that truly matter now:
- Are you content and satisfied with what you’ve made?
- Is that incessant noise that used to be The Idea quiet now?
If the answer to both of these questions is “yes,” you’re done.
The End
Writing something takes a time that is non-deterministic and unquantifiable. Writing something good, something that achieves its potential and matches your vision, takes as long as it takes. Yes, you will get better. Your skill will improve, and your ability to write will increase. However, writing is more than a linear application of skill. Every project is different. You’re always different. Time, energy, and the normal constraints of being a person in a functioning society play their part, and that’s okay. You need to live with your writing for some time. You need to love it because writing a story is a love affair. All of the walls you hit, the frustration with not having the time to write, the days you’re just not feeling it, the time you’re away from your computer and can’t write, the preoccupation, the obligation, the stuff that feels like it’s not part of the writing process… that’s all part of the process, too. The writing you write could not exist without that stuff.
You need to not write to write. You need those challenges so you can tell the best story possible. You need days out of the physical chair. You need days during which your laptop stays closed. You need to go outside, touch grass, and experience life because, no matter what world your story is set on, you’re writing about our world. You need to look another person straight in their eyes and not just say the words but also feel the love deeply, terribly, and beautifully burning.
Every story, no matter how fantastic the setting, is about life on planet Earth during the time in which you live. Every story, no matter how weird the characters, is a portrayal of the people who inhabit your world, who define your experience. Every plot, no matter how wild and far-fetched, operates within the realm of believability, and to know that, you need to know what is believable.
To write, you need to live, and to write a story, you need to live with that story. That takes time.
Patience and grace are the oil and grease in the writing machine. Too little, and it’ll break down. You’ll break down, and I don’t want that because, hey, I care about you.
The point I want to make with all of this is writing a book is a lot more complicated than putting words on a page. If you string together 50,000 words, will you have a novel? Technically, yes. Does that mean you’re finished working on it? Depends on your goals, of course.
Writing takes as much time as it takes, but generally, writing well tends toward taking more time than less.
Because that is just how it works.