I’ve been asked by friends and former students of mine about my process of writing. So this series will be going over the process I use. While I’m not a published author, I do aspire to be one. So here is my current writing process
The idea
Most of my writing starts with an idea or image.
I don’t know how these ideas pop into my head, or why, but usually, I visualize something I would like to see in a story. I also find, that the more that I’m writing, the more these ideas pop into my head. I think that getting the brain into the creation mode, makes these ideas pop up more.
The past year, the more serious I got about my writing, the more often I started writing these ideas down. I would get one image in my head and I’d turn it over and start thinking about things I wanted to see. I add these imagines to my “idea” project in Scrivener, and I write down a quick note to myself so I don’t forget what I was thinking at the time.
I love that I can make a note, or add to my project in Scrivener on my iPhone which I always have with me. I know that most major authors, such as Stephen King, would carry around a notebook, but I feel like the phone can take its place.
My major story ideas seem to get stuck in my head though. I turn them over in mind for days or even weeks. Things slowly start to take shape, and a story begins to sprout.
For example, last year while prepping for NaNoWriMo I came up with the image of a girl waking up in a future time period when everything is recorded. She wakes up and remembers dreaming about killing someone. The dream is so real, that she tries to look through all the videos to make sure that it didn’t really happen, but there’s a missing period of time in the video which had never happened before.
I thought about the visual for a long time and turned it over in my head. Why would she kill someone, why wouldn’t there be any video? Who was this girl?
I had to answer those questions to help me get to the next level.
What images do you have in your mind? What stories do you need to tell?
Post your ideas below.
Check back next Wednesday (hopefully) for the next step in MY writing process.
A published author (can’t remember who it was now) had reflected a few weeks ago on the image being the genesis of a novel or short story or poem. He or she stressed that even the seemingly mundane image can become vital in the creative process. Jarrett, you’ve just shown that journaling and recognition of these images are vital in the creative process and that no aspiring writer should cast aside those images in pursuit of a more important one. Thanks for sharing your writing process!