I’ve been reading a lot lately about writing tips everywhere, from famous authors, fellow bloggers, friends, etc. that I thought I should share what I know from writing my own stories. I’m sure a good amount of what I’m going to touch on, you probably knew already or had a pretty good idea about.
Keep in mind that everything that I’m going to list below, is what works for me personally, and each person has to find their own system, their own groove; though sometimes what works for one can work for many.
1) I DON’T OWN THE STORY, THE STORY OWNS ME.
It took me a while to realized this very crucial fact, but once I did, writing became so much easier and things just started flowing.
I started writing around the time I turned eleven, on a old fashion typewriter my mom gave me. Back then I used to watched TV and often hated what some characters did, so I would write my own takes on how they would react in certain situations. I forgot about writing once I became a teen, but in my junior year, my english teacher brought me back to it by way of having us write poems. I wrote scores of poems for years before my mom found my old typewriter stories and mailed them to me. After that, I started modifying them and then new stories started popping in my head; any number of random things gave me story ideas to the point that I started keeping a journal of it. As time went by ideas started merging and forming better, more complex, more solid stories, ’til I was left with a list of 37 different stories: plot, characters, settings, the works; all stored in my head, waiting for their turn to be told. I’ve written the full manuscript of 7 of those. Will 37 stories be all I have in me? Only time will tell, but I can tell you right now, they are a heavy bunch and more than a handful.
I first tried to dictate how a story will go, where the plot would take the characters, how many would there be, how they would react, etc. Every time I did, I would hit a wall or something would happen that would force me to go back and make major changes. This continued on ’til I finally came to grips with the fact that I wasn’t a God and these characters–people, were not for me to control. The stories were all already told, done. I wasn’t a creator but merely a narrator, and sometimes not even that, for some stories already have a narrator within their world; I’m here simply for the re-telling of each story. After that, I could sit in front of the computer, closed my eyes and simply listen; the story would then tell me how it wanted to be told, and I would write for hours on.
2) I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE STORY.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been completely frustrated with the action of certain characters in my own novels! It’s something that bothers me to this day from time to time, and yet, I know not to try and meddle with their actions. Regardless of your personal views and/or principles outside their world, there’s a pretty good chance a character (if you are being true to the story and letting it be) will do something you personally wouldn’t advocate and you must let it go. Unless you are writing extreme violence, darker than dark occultism, erotica, or children books (and I’m sure even then a character can do something frown upon by the writer) you may have to deal with someone maybe saying something or acting in a way you don’t like or makes you uncomfortable, and you either let it be or you will mess with the integrity of the story itself. You gotta trust the story, otherwise you’re in the wrong field.
One time, I had doubts about a male character saying something that may had been a bit sexist, so I asked a female friend of mine and fellow writer about it, and she told me that I shouldn’t doubt my characters and to not worry about offending prospecting readers, for it would be a disservice to the story, and I knew she was completely right: there’s absolutely no room for doubting your story and your characters.
3)SOME PEOPLE WRITE AS THEY GO, I MAP OUT BEFORE I START WRITING.
Everyone is different when it comes to their craft, and you may have to try different approaches to writing before you settle into your own groove: whatever works for you and gets the magic going.
Whenever I get an idea for a story, whatever the trigger is, I immediately let that seedling grow in the back of my head, going back to it every so often, nurturing it until its a full skeleton. To me the skeleton of a story is the most crucial part of it. It’s the frame that would hold everything together and you want to make sure that frame is strong enough to support the mass, tissue, muscle, flesh, that will make it a fully form being. As the story talks to me, I search for a beginning and an end. It goes without saying that a strong beginning and a full pay off are the most important parts of the story. Without them fully form in my head I would not start any story.
Once I have with me that something that is going to happen on this date, at this location, to this person or group of people; and that said occurrence will have such repercusions that will ultimately lead to this other place and x event (not a resolution per se, for nothing ever really resolves itself, life continues on, things do not end) then I know I’m ready. Sometimes I get flashes of certain things that will happen along the way and that’s even better because once you start writing, is just a matter of connecting the dots as you go from point A to Z, but it isn’t vital because the story will tell me where to go.
4)FINDING AN ENVIRONMENT IS NICE BUT I TRY NOT BE RESTRICTED.
As far as I know, every writer has a place where they go write: A vacation retreat, a special room in the house, a writer’s house/den, a barn in a farm, a special tree in some secluded area, a spot by a stream, the beach, etc. And as far as I know, these people need to be in these “special” places without any distractions to be able to write. I wish I could that too. As luck has it, I don’t have the resources nor the time to find such place. I don’t even have the luxury of a quiet place (I live in NYC, there's no such thing as a quiet place here). So, determined to not let anything stop me, I make do with what I got. I write everywhere, no matter where. I even carry around a notepad and pencil to jot down anything that may come to me, ’cause with me anything could be a trigger. How do I concentrate and aren’t distracted by everything going on around me? See point 5.
5) MUSIC GETS ME IN THE GROOVE, SEE IF YOU CAN FIND A MUSE.
No matter where I am, if I have the time and wanna get some writing done, all I have to do is put my headphones on and plug in. The only downfall to this is that I’ve become so dependent on music that now I cannot write without having music playing in my ears. I even have my headphones on this very second.
I’ve heard that some writers have music playing in the background as they write, but that doesn’t work with me. I have to have my headphones on, the music playing moderately loud. It helps me block out everything around me and it really gets me writing for hours and hours. Without music, I’m as good as a pen without ink. And I’m not talking about classical music either (that may work for some) but genres like: pop, rock, country, r&b, industrial, you name it. And strangely enough, depending on the story, sometimes I can only listen to a certain band/singer or specific albums or nothing will come. Example: For this one story I wrote, I would only “hear” the story in my head if I had The Lord of the Rings soundtrack playing in my ears, and not just the first movie but the whole trilogy’s score on a loop. So see if music–any type of music–can help you.
6) I READ MY FIRST DRAFTS OUT LOUD.
This one is a no-brainer. I hate reading out loud, you have no idea. And I get very annoyed by other people reading out loud around me. Don’t know why, it just is. But I force myself to read my first (and all subsequent ones) drafts out loud; it is the only way that I can tell if something sounds confusing, rushed, or just plain incoherent. I read so fast when silent that I miss lots of errors of this kind, and by reading out loud it’s the only way that I can catch them and iron them out. Granted, I still miss a few things here and there so I have a couple of very opinionated friends that love to read my stuff check my drafts so that they can point out my errors. Every writer should have someone like that.
7) I ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND THAT THERE ARE NO TEMPLATES, NO RULES.
I don’t know about non-fiction, but what I love most about fiction is that there are no boundaries to what you can do. If someone tells you you can’t do this or that, or you can’t jump through time, or begin at the end and work your way backwards, or get to a point and then restart the whole thing from the perspective of a different character, or have multiples narrators? Very politely, bid them goodbye.
When I started writing I was told that you had to follow a certain pattern (template) on how to tell your story, and you couldn’t deviate from it because you wouldn’t be published and no one will read your messy piece of unconventional crap. Something about reading being hard enough as it was and no one was going to invest on reading non-linear narratives on top of that. Then I discovered Anne Rice and her penchant for telling stories back and forth between centuries, and she did it with such ease and intelligence, I was in awe. Moreover, I found Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell which utililzes a truck-load of footnotes and sometimes has you go back hundreds of pages to explain a certain situation. And then there’s the grandaddy of unconventional books: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, which rebels in experimental form, multiples narrators, inconsistent page layouts, typographical variation, the use of multiple languages and not everything is translated for you, footnotes upon footnotes and even footnotes having footnotes, a few words or only just one per page, hidden codes and text within the narratives… you name it. And yet, with all of that, the books is excellent. Mark Z. may have done it on purpose as some sort of F-U to professors that failed him and told him he just didn’t have what it take, but the proof is there: there are no rules, just stay true to the story however unconventional.
8) I RESEARCH. EVEN IF I’VE NEVER BEEN, I CAN STILL USE IT.
I always remind myself that the library is my friend (or the internet if you don’t have the time; I personally don’t like to always be staring at a pc screen, plus nothing beats getting out of the house and stretch your legs). I know some people only write about what they know, or if you have means, travel to places and write about them. Others create completely fictional worlds and call it a day. I like to use real life settings and give them fictional qualities, and I do not restrict myself to my surroundings. Example: I’ve never been to Missouri, but this particular story I wrote was adamant that it needed to take place there, so I went to the library and I got my hands in as many books, picture or otherwise, about Missouri as possible, and spend the whole day reading, taking notes, etc. When I left the library I knew enough about Missouri to claim I’ve lived there, so don’t be afraid to use locales other than your backyard.
9)WRITER’S BLOCK=BURNED OUT. TAKE A BREAK.
I know that some people do experience writer’s block, which is terrible, like a writer’s kryptonite. I count myself lucky that I’ve never had a bout of writer’s block but I do burn out.
As ironic and ridiculous as this may sound, I have a very short attention span. But you’re a writer; how can you have short attention span if you have to remain inmerse in a story for months! years! ever! I don’t know, it just is. So whenever I write, I tend to feel exhausted after say…eight weeks of living in the same world, and with exhaustion, comes the innevitable halt. Which brings me to another topic that goes hand in hand with writer’s block and burning out: how long one takes to write a book? I know people try to give themselves deadlines, and famous writers have all the spare time in the world to crack a book in a couple of months, but I don’t. I used to give myself deadlines but I quickly found out that you can’t rush a story no matter how badly you want it to come. Depending on how much time you have to dedicate yourself to writing, and counting that you don’t hit a wall, it can take you from a few months to years. (The longest stretch for me was seven months, first draft, and then an extra year and a half because two extra characters had to be added to the story and what with editing and time off…)
Lots of masterpieces took years to write. A book will be ready when is ready. In the meantine, I try to take a couple of weeks off here and there before resuming, so that I don’t burn out, and sometimes you'll find that the break was actually beneficial, for you can approach the story with that freshness you had lost on the weeks before, or you may have used the time off to work out whatever plot dead-ends you may have encountered up to that point.
10) IF NEEDED BE, I’LL GO TO THE MIRROR AND REPEAT: LET THE STORY END!
Once I’m finished, I take another break (a month) and then begin the ardous process of re-reading and editing and re-editing, until all the little glitches and errors have been smooth out, but sometimes I find myself going over the story one too many times, until I realize that I’m just having “separation anxiety” if you will. Once you are done and you’ve gone over it, all the necessary times, and you have exhausted your brain searching for anything that you may have missed or trying to listen to see if the story points you to something that may be missing, you have to learn to let go. As a writer there will be times when you aren’t 100% satisfy with the end result and that’s all right! Once again, it isn’t about you, it is about the story and if the story is done, you can’t spend all of your life going over it, searching for things to change/improve when there’s nothing left to improve. As long as you stayed true to it, the story will be perfect just as it is, no matter who says otherwise. Remember that everyone has a different opinion and not everyone is meant to get it.
After that, celebrate, share it, and then readied yourself up to go through this maddening process all over again. But as a writer, you have to love it; it is what makes you who you are.
I hope this have been helpful to anyone reading it.
