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Strengths and weaknesses
I feel kind of embarrassed that it's taken writing, like, 4+ books for me to finally identify what my strengths and weaknesses as a writer are, but apparently that's the case.
My strength is writing emotions. My weakness is writing actions.
This...probably explains why I struggle with writing (1) action scenes, and (2) investigation interview scenes. Any kind of scene where it's just mechanical plot stuff happening, I always have an issue with hating my output because I think the scene is too mechanical and poorly written.
(Am I right or am I just being too hard on myself? Who knows...)
Process
I've mentioned, a lot, that I write books out of order. I've been reflecting on this a lot more lately.
When I say I write out of order, I mean two things: (1) When a story idea first comes to me and is "ready" to be written, so to speak, I usually start with flashes of ideas regarding the beginning, key turning point scenes in the middle, and maybe the end, so I write what comes to me first and they just happen to be out of order; (2) While drafting, if I'm struggling with a scene, I usually skip it to something that's easier to write in order to maintain drafting momentum.
I think (1) ties into the fact that I usually start with the emotions of a story—because when I know the emotional arc of a story right away, I know how that arc starts, how it evolves, and how it ends. And because I'm a discovery writer at my core, writing whatever scene comes to my head first also really helps me get to know the characters at the beginning of a project. For example, if I know I need a scene in the middle where Character A argues with Character B, I might think, okay, how would Character A react in this argument? What does that say about who they are? And how do I build scenes that come before so that all of this makes sense? Dialogue and character interactions are the parts of a book that are the most unplanned for me—I often find a scene not turning out exactly the way I think because of how the dialogue is flowing. And those unexpected discoveries are what make the story interesting and exciting for me.
Side note on character development: I used to be the type of author who filled out long character sheets for my protagonists, but I don't really do that anymore. Instead, I build all my characters around a few basic questions:
1. What do they want?
2. What are they scared of/insecure about?
3. What's their basic personality?
4. Does all of this make sense considering their background?
After all, what makes characters unique is, in my opinion, the complex interactions between these aspects. Everything else—things like hobbies, favorite music, quirky habits—are kind of just window dressing. But the most important thing for writing a story is understanding your protagonist(s), because if you don't have a core understanding of your protagonist(s), the story isn't compelling and the reader can tell.
Anyway, back to out-of-order writing.
One thing I've been thinking about is whether my out-of-order process works better for some genres than others. For romance, it works well for me. I suspect it may also work well for a horror, so I'm going to try it when I draft my horror novel. Why? Because in books like these, you generally have a clear emotional goal you're building toward. In romance, it's the building up of the romantic relationship. In horror—at least, the kind of horror I enjoy and want to try writing—it's the growing unease and discomfort until the what and why of the horror is revealed. And so coming up with scenes out of order almost feels like laying down stepping stones on a path that you start with a clear vision of, then going in later to connect the dots from Point A to B to C to D.
For mystery, I found this approach...suboptimal.
And I think that may be because mystery is a much more intricate dance of red herrings and subplots and misleading while making sure everything still makes sense, which makes it easier to lose sight of pacing when you write out of order. (You won't believe how many charts and diagrams I had to make for my mystery plot as I was revising.)
I guess I started with my out-of-order method for Novel #4 because I did start with an idea about the emotional romantic subplot before I put the mystery together. But, if I ever write a mystery again in the future, I would try harder to stick to a chronological/linear drafting process.
I feel kind of embarrassed that it's taken writing, like, 4+ books for me to finally identify what my strengths and weaknesses as a writer are, but apparently that's the case.
My strength is writing emotions. My weakness is writing actions.
This...probably explains why I struggle with writing (1) action scenes, and (2) investigation interview scenes. Any kind of scene where it's just mechanical plot stuff happening, I always have an issue with hating my output because I think the scene is too mechanical and poorly written.
(Am I right or am I just being too hard on myself? Who knows...)
Process
I've mentioned, a lot, that I write books out of order. I've been reflecting on this a lot more lately.
When I say I write out of order, I mean two things: (1) When a story idea first comes to me and is "ready" to be written, so to speak, I usually start with flashes of ideas regarding the beginning, key turning point scenes in the middle, and maybe the end, so I write what comes to me first and they just happen to be out of order; (2) While drafting, if I'm struggling with a scene, I usually skip it to something that's easier to write in order to maintain drafting momentum.
I think (1) ties into the fact that I usually start with the emotions of a story—because when I know the emotional arc of a story right away, I know how that arc starts, how it evolves, and how it ends. And because I'm a discovery writer at my core, writing whatever scene comes to my head first also really helps me get to know the characters at the beginning of a project. For example, if I know I need a scene in the middle where Character A argues with Character B, I might think, okay, how would Character A react in this argument? What does that say about who they are? And how do I build scenes that come before so that all of this makes sense? Dialogue and character interactions are the parts of a book that are the most unplanned for me—I often find a scene not turning out exactly the way I think because of how the dialogue is flowing. And those unexpected discoveries are what make the story interesting and exciting for me.
Side note on character development: I used to be the type of author who filled out long character sheets for my protagonists, but I don't really do that anymore. Instead, I build all my characters around a few basic questions:
1. What do they want?
2. What are they scared of/insecure about?
3. What's their basic personality?
4. Does all of this make sense considering their background?
After all, what makes characters unique is, in my opinion, the complex interactions between these aspects. Everything else—things like hobbies, favorite music, quirky habits—are kind of just window dressing. But the most important thing for writing a story is understanding your protagonist(s), because if you don't have a core understanding of your protagonist(s), the story isn't compelling and the reader can tell.
Anyway, back to out-of-order writing.
One thing I've been thinking about is whether my out-of-order process works better for some genres than others. For romance, it works well for me. I suspect it may also work well for a horror, so I'm going to try it when I draft my horror novel. Why? Because in books like these, you generally have a clear emotional goal you're building toward. In romance, it's the building up of the romantic relationship. In horror—at least, the kind of horror I enjoy and want to try writing—it's the growing unease and discomfort until the what and why of the horror is revealed. And so coming up with scenes out of order almost feels like laying down stepping stones on a path that you start with a clear vision of, then going in later to connect the dots from Point A to B to C to D.
For mystery, I found this approach...suboptimal.
And I think that may be because mystery is a much more intricate dance of red herrings and subplots and misleading while making sure everything still makes sense, which makes it easier to lose sight of pacing when you write out of order. (You won't believe how many charts and diagrams I had to make for my mystery plot as I was revising.)
I guess I started with my out-of-order method for Novel #4 because I did start with an idea about the emotional romantic subplot before I put the mystery together. But, if I ever write a mystery again in the future, I would try harder to stick to a chronological/linear drafting process.
