What's your story writing process?

To write a story, I have to be required to do it for a creative writing class or something – first, I just let it all come out, then edit. When I write on Fluther, I write how I speak without too much editing.

When I want to write a story I think about it for a few days. I don’t write my plans for the story on paper. When I feel I have the main idea in place I just start writing and every few sentences to paragraphs I read over it.
With fluther responses I just type what’s on my mind and check it over for spelling mistakes.

I can’t stop editing. I still edit things that I wrote years ago. It’s in my nature to be observant and critical, but I’m trying to control that, believe it or not. At least when I’m critical I try to be helpful, too, and constructive when that’s possible.

I may write a story one day. I like the way Fluther has allowed me to reconnect with parts of my past that have been hidden to me (or simply forgotten and neglected) for a long time, and I’m often amazed when something I tell (or write) grabs someone’s interest. My life hasn’t often seemed that interesting to me.

When I’m writing fiction I put my fingers to the keyboard and just let it roll. I come back when I’m sober and edit.

When I’m writing on Fluther I put my fingers to the keyboard and just let it roll. I never come back sober.

__“Writing is rewriting“__

If you write, it’s for someone to read, no? Even if yourself, writing is to be read. Otherwise, you could just think things and doodle.

No one writes the first draft well. Yes, many people feel that they are engaged, some of them claim a muse directs them, but really, first drafts are always crappy. If you’re not willing to go back and rewrite, you are aiming abysmally low. The fact that you felt, “Possessed” or “On fire” when you wrote means nothing after you are done. You can do better if you are willing to read what you wrote critically and edit. And by “critically” I mean with an open mind, not a condemning one. And by edit I mean reduce and improve.

I’m in some writing groups. I read a lot of stuff through those and other sources. Many people have good ideas, but few people are willing to do the work to write them well. To make them readable. If you do the work, it shows.

I think too, that if you really love to write, editing is the more natural and fulfilling thing you can do.

My fluther writing style is usually whatever comes out as it comes out.

Writing stories, I usually have an arc or a framework in mind that I am working with. I will just write it out as I think it with only vague planning and edit as I go. Then when I finish, I go back and proofread and edit again for coherence.

I’m actually experimenting with this in order to (try to) write a book.

-I’m laying out characters based on people and characters I already know pretty well.
-I’ve already decided on the chapter titles and most of the places.
-Now I’m writing a sentence for every page I want to write as a guide.
-I want to use the best imagery I’ve come up with over the years in any shorter stories.

So though I don’t have any definate text yet I’m actually really optimistic this time. I’ve tried writing “a book” before but didn’t take into account the fact that language isn’t perfect.

When I write on fluther I write as I speak. When I write I reread and edit. It keeps rambling and randomness from occuring. It makes for improvements in the pictoral I am trying to paint with words. And when I am done I hand it all off to someone who specializes in grammer but who knows my voice for a last edit. She tweeks things just a bit more.

For me, it really depends on the intention.
I usually write to think things through—I’ll even say that my brain’s in my hand. It’s kind of interesting to do, because I don’t usually fully know what words I’m saying until they’re about to or are being written out. I have so many scattered notebooks and word documents where I just have jumbles of thoughts, some fairly smooth to read, some horrendous, some I write and never look at again.

On fluther, sometimes the topic is just interesting so I start writing and see what my hands come up with. Sometimes I’ve got an opinion or advice I want to try and share. I try to use fluther as practice for voicing things, because I’m much more comfortable typing than I am talking. But it doesn’t really seem to be helping the translation from silent, written words to voiced ones, so I guess it’s really all just for the immediate despite what I tell myself.

When I’m writing stories—I do for fun—it depends. Sometimes I’m painting the images in my own head as I put down the words, sometimes I’m using the words to paint images I’ve already got in my head. Sometimes it’s whole phrases or paragraphs fully formed, or mostly formed, that are burning holes in my mind until I get them out.
Sometimes I’m actually so sick of communicating that I don’t want to write, and let the images and words burn away into smoke or soot or whatever they burn to.

Sometimes I have to wait for the words to come, because the thought I have still isn’t translatable. I guess that’s where the process really starts, and then the words find their way, and I write them.

I really need to get better at the whole re-writing thing, and work that into my ‘process’. Once I’ve got a sentence, even if it’s pretty ugly, or even if it’s worded in a weird way, it’s hard for me to change it.

This response was kind of a mish-mash of me thinking it was interesting and me thinking through it. I thought I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I didn’t have any idea I was going to say any of this when I started. That’s usually what happens, I think. I’ve got no idea where I’m going with what I’m saying until I get there. I’ve got to trust the path or realize when I’m headed at a dead end and start erasing backtracking.

I’m well into in an undergraduate CW program. We’ve been working a lot with the idea of reverie and how it effects your initial writing as well as your revision process. One the books our teacher highly recommended reading was Robert Owen Butler’s, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction

I read it, and now I’m highly recommending it to everyone who’s interested in writing! I like how this particular review says that “he shows how to revise at the level of structure rather than sentence.” (Something I feel is necessary before ever attempting to revise sentences.)

@6rant6 Perhaps you misunderstood the question. Maybe I should have edited it more. However, I would very much be interested in your writing process. I’m not so much interested in your normative prescriptions for everyone else. If editing is the most natural and fulfilling thing you can do, let us in on the secret. How do you do it? How does it fulfill you?

@wundayatta…
The process depends on the form and purpose. If I know what it’s going to be used for, I pretty much write from beginning to end. Then I read it, and there are the things that need to be fixed and the things that i can improve shouting at me. And then I read it again and more stuff. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And if I can get other people to read it, they give me more ideas of what can be improved.

If it’s any good, I enjoy reading my work; when it’s not, I am driven to improve it.

Longer forms (plays, screenplays) I may outline. Shorter forms (poems, essays) I usually have pretty clearly worked out in my mind before I start – although I may end up changing them completely later on.

I know that a lot of people read for the general story line. But I really like to find well written prose – a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph that contains a new idea stated succinctly or poetically. So I read my own writing with that same eye. Shorten anything I can. Add where I can make something flow better.

I know in reviewing other people’s work, I’m much more likely to say, “This section is poorly written” or “This part makes no sense” than I am to say, “Your story doesn’t fulfill some basic requirement of structure or character arc.” But when other people make those comments, I think, “Damn! How’d I miss that!” That probably means, that I miss those flaws in my own writing. Hm. Should probably take that as a clue…

@6rant6 Thank you. GA. Very helpful.

I’m pretty sure that most people who write have this feeling (sometimes) when they finish something: “Damn! That is good!” Later, of course, you read it over and see all these flaws, and then you have to decide if you want to do anything about them, or just throw it out.

I just had that feeling and now I’m afraid to reread it because I don’t want to lose the feeling by seeing the flaws. I think that every once in a while I do get things right the first time. At least once this past year. It attracted quite a few eyes—more than any other thing I’ve written.

I believe that things can be improved, but so often I can’t see what is wrong with something. It’s very frustrating. Then, of course, if I get back to it years later, it all looks horrible, so I wonder what made me write it in the first place. Not that it matters, anyway. But I’m curious.

@wundayatta I remember picking up one of the first screenplays I’d written a decade later and thinking, “Hey, that’s not too bad!” Still, I’m sure that if I decided to send it out now even a cursory reread would give me a long list of things to fix.

I guess because I completely accept the fact that writing is rewriting, I don’t feel bad when something needs fixing. I’m just doing the work. And it’s work I do by choice.

When I select a section of a work to print or send to someone, I have to remind myself not to edit the smaller document. It’s hard, though.