Takeshi's Writing Process

I thought I would share the writing process I have evolved over 2-3 years of more or less serious writing. I hope this helps me understand it more and helps newer writers find their own process.

Takeshi's Writing Process

"Write from the deep and honest well of yourself."

- K. M. Weiland

“Write drunk; edit sober.”

- Ernest Hemingway

The writing process below has emerged over the few years that I’ve been writing seriously, and I thought I would share it in case it is helpful for others. When I began writing, I fumbled around a lot trying to find a process and generally felt frustrated. I don’t present this as the best writing process, but simply a proven process that you can use as a springboard for developing your own.

If you wish to follow this process, as soon as possible, you’ll need to develop a high tolerance for s****y writing. You’ll need to allow yourself to make a huge mess, then gradually clean it up until you’re left with a pristine story, grown organically. In my experience, the only thing that gets in the way is one’s own Ego. Seek not to be a fantastic writer; seek instead to be a writer of fantastic stories.

So where does one begin? With words. What is a novel, but a collection of chapters? What is a chapter, but a collection of scenes? What is a scene, but a collection of paragraphs? What is a paragraph, but a collection of sentences? And, finally, what is a sentence, but a collection of words? Our job begins with writing words; that is how books are written. Remember this and your job will be much easier.

Note that I switch between using books and scenes as examples when presenting my phases, but what applies to one unit, applies equally well to any other.

Lastly, please feel free to share any suggestions you make have to improve this process. I consider this a living document which is welcome to  

Phase 0: Idea Gathering

In this phase, you gather story ideas during the course of daily life. It could be on the train or in the car going somewhere. It could be while sitting in class. It could be in the shower, or just before you fall asleep at night.

The important point here is to get the ideas out of your head and onto paper. Write them down in whatever rough words you can manage. For this, I carry around a pocket-sized notebook. As soon as possible, move the idea from a physical medium (notebook, post-it, etc) to a digital file (e.g. “ideas.txt”) and dump all your ideas in there.

Phase 1: Concept

Some ideas you gather will center on interesting characters, others will center on plot and conflict, while others will center on interesting settings. Sift through them and develop a story concept. This will be the main driver of your plot. One way to generate a story concept is to answer a “What if” question.

Here are some examples.

“What if the Dark Lord had a weapon of absolute power, and the only one who could destroy the weapon was a homebody who liked drinking tea and smoking his pipe?” J. R. R. Tolkien took this concept and wrote The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

“What if you were told you were the Chosen One who could defeat the Dark One, but in the process you would go mad and kill yourself and everyone you ever loved?” Robert Jordan took this idea and wrote The Wheel of Time series.

“What if every 25 years or so a horror awoke in a small Maine town and started killing children in the form of a clown?” Stephen King took this concept and wrote my favorite novel, “IT”.

You will likely combine multiple such ideas into a total story concept.

Phase 2: Sketch

In the next phase, you create a “sketch” of the scene. In this part, the goal is to write as quickly as possible, never hitting the delete key once. This method is called free writing and I’ve found it to be a powerful technique for letting out ideas. (Incidentally, I believe this to be the way to get yourself into a “flow state” or the “wei, wu wei” state described in Taoism and Zen in which you act without conscious thought and your actions become effortless, performing optimally.)

It is up to your individual taste, but if you find it conducive, use music to guide your mood. I generally find music without words (or indecipherable words) to support deeper immersion. This phase is not about using your brain, but instead channeling the emotions and creative ideas that lie with you.

The key factor about this “sketching” or “free writing” technique is that you suspend your judgemental/editing mind and just write (hence the “no deleting” rule). There is a phenomenon that occurs when we give up editing as we write - our creative minds open and more ideas flow out, both good and bad. Later, during subsequent rounds of editing we will cleanup our mess, throwing out the bad ideas and keeping the good only. For an elegant description of this phenomenon, please read The Watcher at the Gate by Gail Goodwin.

I have discovered characters I would never have brainstormed in the moment as I sketched a scene. A scene that I had originally written with two characters, suddenly had three and became much more powerful. As intelligent as you may be, it is unlikely that you will be able to plan out every detail of a masterpiece beforehand. I suspect a writer needs to be open to inspiration by writing “in the moment” to bring true realism to a story.

Once you have free-written a sketch of your scene, you’ll likely have an idea of where your story needs to go next to add more conflict and move the story onward toward its natural conclusion. If you already know the next scene, now is a good time to stop and circle back to Phase 2 for the next scene and continue free-writing. Any time you get stuck, take the earliest scene that had made it through Phase 2 and continue on with it to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Rough Draft

In this phase, you will take a scene sketch and begin polishing it into a rough draft. All that matters at this point is whether the necessary story elements are present - conflict, tension, open questions - the things that will keep your reader curious and turning pages.

It’s important to note that grammar, spelling, and sentence flow are unimportant at this point; those can all be fixed later, after you decide whether this scene will stay or not. As you write more of your story, you may realize the scene must be rewritten or is completely unnecessary, so polishing too much too early wastes your precious time. With the time saved by not polishing too early, you can go on to write more masterpieces!

Another aspect that should be addressed early in this phase, though, is point of view. This is important regardless of the point of view you choose; however, if you’re writing in Third Person Limited, this is especially critical. The reason is because messing up POV can result in large parts of the scene needing to be rewritten, and in Third Person Limited, the character who is POV determines how the story can be told. So the Rough draft phase is where we hammer out POV issues.

As an example, I sketched a scene from a book from one character’s perspective, as he massacres a group of evil men. That scene sketch was very helpful as a guide for what was happening, but ultimately needed to be rewritten to completely change the POV, instead using a character who was captured by the evil men and has a bag over her head, thus enhancing the mystery, tension and feelings of confusion for the reader as they only have access to her thoughts and senses of hearing and smell.

In the rough draft phase, run-on sentences are acceptable and the goal is mere readability, not grammatical perfection. The product of this phase is a rough draft that is shareable with advance readers or your personal writing group. You should NOT continue on to Phase 4 (further polishing) until you have written the entire work (e.g. novel) to a rough draft point. The reason is that you may still need to throw out entire scenes or otherwise rewrite sections of the work. To save time, you need to get through the entire work so you know what you are writing toward. It makes no sense to polish a chapter that you will later throw out. Even more important, the act of polishing could make it impossible for your ego to let go of the unnecessary chapter. The less time you invest in a part of your story, the less attached you will be to it and, thus, the easier it will be to cut during your editing.

Phase 4: Shareable Draft

Once you have written your entire story or novel, you can then return to the beginning and proceed to polish it further. The product of this phase is a draft which is shareable with a wider audience who are not your close writing friends, but are still able to provide you helpful feedback. The shareable draft would be the version you could post to websites such as Writer’s Cafe or Wattpad, but need not be a polished final draft.

In this phase, you generate your shareable draft by editing (in this order) for: compelling characters, unique and vivid descriptions (careful to keep the balance between tension/action and description), realism of your dialogue, flow and rhythm of your prose, and finally grammar/spelling.

Phase 5: Final Draft

The result of this phase is a publishable draft, something you could either self-publish or submit to a publishing house for consideration.

In this phase, you edit for things like suitability of names (characters, locations, etc), cultural and/or historical correctness (if applicable),

plot and setting consistency (important if your story takes place in the real world or a fantasy world), open questions and answers (see Threads and Promises document below), power of your climax (is your climax maximal? could it be made stronger somehow?), stylistic flair, first chapter strength (strong enough to hook the reader?), theme (Is there anything you can do to bring it to the surface more?)

At this point, it might make sense to read through your book and build a "Threads and Promises" document in which you keep track of where you open questions and where those questions are answered (if ever).

The Golden Rule

Always be open to inspiration at any point in the process. As you write one chapter, you may discover something about a character you didn’t know before. You then have the opportunity to sprinkle in events, actions or descriptions that reveal or hint at this aspect in earlier scenes. Ideas come whenever they please, so be open to them and do not adhere too strictly to the flow of this process.

Lessons Learned

- Sensitivity is crucial to effective writing. If the reader gets the feeling you’re trying to make them feel something, it can completely dispel the illusion of the story.

- Divorce yourself from the story. It is your child, but it must become more than you.

Author's Note

When I started out writing, I fumbled around a lot and found myself wishing there was a process I could just follow so that I could focus on writing and not figuring out how to do it. While I think that the process should suit the writer, and I don't believe this is "right" or "correct". It is simply A process and hopefully one that new writers can use as a starting point for discovering their own process.

Reviews

[Usman Muhammad]

Thanks for writing such valuable article.
There are many important aspects you have discussed. And I hope they will help me with my writing.

[Takeshi Yamada]

Usman, I'm happy to share what I have learned so far with the hope that it is helpful for others. Keep up your writing and enjoy it as you go.

[M. L. F.]

I am in complete agreement with Usman Muhammad. Very valuable tips indeed, from a very talented writer. Thanks for sharing Takeshi!