H. D. Dodson

Today I’m continuing our in-depth look at my writing process.  Enjoy!

So you’ve written a book.  You’ve done the celebrating.  You’ve jumped up and down and shouted from the rooftops what an amazing genius you are.

Now what?

Hold tight, my friends, because now comes the hard part.  Some people like to wait a while before they jump into revising a manuscript.  Me?  Not so much.  Not if I’m still in love with the story.

Whenever you’re ready, this is how I suggest you start.

1.  If you don’t have a critique group / partner / beta readers — start looking for one or several.  Be prepared to critique their work in return for having your own critiqued.  This is one of the most valuable relationships you can form during your writing career, in my opinion.  I tell ya, I don’t know what I would do without my crit buddy and beta readers.  Not only do they give solid, helpful feedback, but they’re my friends.  They’re always there to lend an ear when I’ve got a new idea, or if I need to whine.    But I try not to whine too much.

2.  While hunting for that amazing group of writers to work with, dust off that first draft.  Look at it and accept the fact that it still needs lots of work.  That may seem like nothing, but I promise, this is a necessary step.  You must realize, and be ready for, the amount of work you are going to have to do.

3.  Start reading.  Try not to focus on the little things like comma placement yet.  You need to read for big picture problems.  Plot holes, structure, pacing, and development.  (Yes, I realize you are still going to fix grammar as you go, and that’s fine, but don’t get bogged down in it.  I do it too.)

4.  After you’ve gone through your draft at least once and revised out any issues you found in that step, it’s time for fresh eyes.  In steps the critique partner.  At this stage, I find it easier to go scene by scene with critiques.  It allows for a much more in-depth look at each piece of the story individually.  You’re going to get a better feel for the pacing and basic scene progression this way.  Plus, when the comments come back, it’s not quite as overwhelming to go at 6-10 pages at a time.

5.  Okay, so after probably a few months, you’ve made it through the story with your crit partner.  Woot!  But, you’ve probably also spotted one or two major plot holes that need to be addressed as well.  Right?  Yeah.  I know I always do.  So, dive back in, lovelies, we’re getting close!

6.  Look at that shiny and bright MS!  Oh, my, it’s practically a Cullen with all those sparkles!  You’ve done a good job polishing that up, friends, but don’t hit send on that query quite yet.  We’re not quite done.  This is the step that can really take that MS from Cullen sparkles to diamonds.  Beta readers.  By now you and your crit partner are so familiar with this story you can’t be objective any more.  It’s time for betas.  I, personally, have three people I trust to beta my WIP.  They all bring different strengths to the table, and they’ll all find different little problems to be fixed.  You may want to send your MS to all of them at once, or you may stagger it to fix some things in between.  I do the latter because I’m a perfectionist.

7. Wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Because with betas you send the whole MS at once.  So it’s going to take a lot longer to get feedback than just a scene would.  And waiting is no fun, I know, but it is so necessary.

8.  Once you get that beta feedback, and make the necessary changes, guess what, lovelies?  We’re still not done.  Gah.  Are you sick of me yet?  I never realized what a convoluted process I follow, but it is so worth it!  I promise!  Because now, we’re going to print that MS out.  Put it in a different font, trust me.  Now we’re going to do our nit-picky line edits.  Woot!  That different font is really going to help you catch things you wouldn’t otherwise.  Neatest trick ever.

After that, my dears, you should have a MS that sparkles like the brightest diamond.  And you should celebrate all of your hard work!  What do you guys think?  Do you take all these steps in your process?

Many of you mentioned in my call for feedback that you wanted to talk more about processes.  So, over the next couple weeks I’m going to splash the blog with my own writing processes from the inspiration through the first draft, revisions, and straight through the query.  It’s just the way I do things, and meant to open the floor up for discussion. 

Today let’s start with the inspiration.

An idea has fallen from the sky.  It smashed into your head and trickled into all the empty spaces, filling you with excitement.

First: Celebrate.  Run with the idea.  Play it out in your mind.  Maybe this could happen. Or THIS!  OMG THIS IS GOING TO BE EPIC!  I am BRILLIANT!  Best. Idea. Ever.

Ponder the idea for a while.  Allow it to snatch all of your daydreams into its strange and exciting world.  This is a very important step in the process.  If the idea loses its spark, if you find yourself thinking of it less and less…maybe it wasn’t such a great idea after all.

Second:  The idea stuck.  You are still sure you’ve come up with the next blockbuster and this character is screaming in your ear and you must. write. this. story.  Excellent!  But now it’s time to work.

Pull out your handy-dandy notebook and take some notes.  What is your basic plot idea?  Who are your main characters?  Who is the bad guy?  What makes this story fun and unique?  Write down all of the big events you dreamed up in Part One of our process.

Third:  Research.  This is especially important if you are writing a story in a historical setting, but it applies to everyone.  You need to know what kind of books are out there in the genre.  Is there anything similar to your amazing shiny new idea?  If it is a historical novel you’ve got double the work.  Language, dress, customs…everything about your story will be effected by the time period.

Fourth:  Outline.  If you outline.  I’ve never been an outliner before.  At least not in the traditional sense.  I (as mentioned in step two) take notes on where I see the story going, but I’ve never done a scene by scene outline.  On my own SNI I am planning to though.  We’ll see how it goes.

Fifth:  Write that first draft, baby!  Let loose and allow your mind to run away with you.  Don’t be too strict with your outline or you may miss an amazing scene opportunity.  Alternately don’t be to lax either or you’ll wind up meandering into nothing.  That’s no fun.

Now, with your first draft in hand, it’s time to really celebrate.  But not for too long, because up next we conquer the dreaded Revision Monster!

What do you think?  Does this sound similar to your own process?