My Writing Process
If you're not familiar with the writing and publishing industry, this whole thing of 'writing a book' can probably sound overwhelming. "What does she mean, she's writing a book? It can't be that hard to put words on a page, anybody can do it!".
Well, you're not wrong. Anybody can write a book, anybody can put words on paper and share their thoughts or come up with a story that means something to them. No one knows exactly how many stories they have inside of them until they try.
The tricky thing is writing a book well. The tricky thing is knowing story structure, the importance of themes, satisfying character arcs... and most importantly, having the discipline to write a whole book. Waiting for inspiration to strike will leave you with 10 written pages; that's not a book, it's a college essay.
So how does one get a book written? Well, here's how I'm doing it, at least.
Brain Dump
For me, a story starts with a loving brain dump. This means there is a whole note on my Notes App that is dedicated to my random ideas. For the first book, it looked something like this:
(Look at me, letting you in on some light spoilers 😉 )
For a few weeks, I will just write down any random ideas I have for the story while it slowly starts building itself up in my brain. At this point, I might have ideas for some characters and the main arc, but not much else.
Creating the Characters
Then I go on to the trickiest part, at least for me. Creating characters that are interesting to me. For this book, I knew I wanted two main female protagonists, each with wildly different backgrounds, lives, and goals; which is why I made one an assassin and the other one a princess.
I go on to figure out their role in the overall story, their main goals, their physical description, their personality type, their occupation, their habits/mannerisms, and their background story (basically what made them who they are when the story starts).
For our main character, Ashe, some of it looked something like this:
And for Mara, our other main protagonist, it started off like this:
Now, these were just the basis to create something bigger, just the start of who these characters could be. As I went on to write the story, they became more, and, at times, their background changed to better suit the story.
Creating an Outline
In the world of writers, there are writers known as plotters (those who know exactly what is happening at all times in their story, they plan everything to the minute detail), and writers known as pantsers (those who have a basic idea but come up with the plot as they go, finding the story as they write and letting their characters make decisions).
One of the big differences between these two types of writers is usually their use of an outline.
I am a plotter. Before I feel ready to start writing even a chapter, I need to know where I'm going (I learned my lesson when I was writing fanfics, I cannot be a pantser or the story will never get an ending and the book will not exist). To do that, I create a detailed outline following the 3 Act Structure (I don't follow it to the detail, but I mostly use it as a guide, not being afraid to deviate from it if I feel it serves my story better).
The 3 Act structure looks something like this:
(this image is not mine but I don't remember where I got it from; it's been sitting on my desktop for months now)
Mine looks like A LOT OF TEXT that will overwhelm you, but that is what I need to feel ready to start writing. That is what gives me confidence, knowing that I have thought of everything I could until that point to prepare myself to write the story to my best capacity.
Breaking it into Chapters
The next step is turning that outline into chapters. I break it down into small summaries that don't make much sense to anyone else but me, but I slowly add each part of the outline into chapters and start realizing what needs to happen when, and how many chapters I end up with. That ends up looking something like this.
Writing, writing, and more writing
The hardest part happens now. Turning those random, summarized words into full chapters that start resembling something. My first draft took me a little over 3 months to write. I would usually take 1 day to write 1 chapter. There were weeks where I wrote 2 chapters and felt I could write more than that, there were weeks I tried writing 4 and realized that was too much for me, that I felt creatively drained, and that my brain was made of juice. In the end, I realized the perfect balance for me was to write 3 chapters per week.
As I wrote the first draft, I would share the chapters with some close friends who so kindly helped me by reading them as I went. They are champions, let me tell you, because first drafts are ROUGH. However, their initial feedback helped me immensely in taking this story from my head and putting it on paper so it was digestible to other people than me.
With their feedback (especially my partner's, who is my unofficial editor, my business manager, and overall right arm to this crazy endeavor I'm on) and my own detailed red scribbles on the first print copy of the book, I ended up editing my way to a second draft which was much longer (I think I added about 30,000 words), but much better, in my opinion.
Now, I don't think it's perfect by any means. Actually, I already know a lot of changes I still want to make to the story. And that is what is helpful at this stage - getting some distance, gaining some perspective, and working on other things.
Waiting
When I finished the second draft, I sent it to some amazing beta readers, who I fully trust will give me some very honest, tough, and helpful feedback. And while this first book of the trilogy isn't finished, I do have to busy myself so I don't go crazy waiting for feedback.
These days, I am doing research for the next book. Lots of research (more on that later)! I am scribbling my random ideas and thoughts on my notes app, which I will later turn into an outline. I am thinking of new characters to add to the second book that will help the story and the characters mature. And I am thinking of all the ways I can make my characters suffer hehe
The great thing about you joining this journey now is that you will get to see all of this happen in real-time as I start writing my next book 😊
What's next?
After I get the feedback from my beta readers and finish the third (and last) draft of this first book in the trilogy, then what happens?
Well, I spent a lot of time the past year thinking exactly about this. Should I go mainstream and sell the story to one of the main 5 publishers in the US? Should I go Indie and retain the rights to my own story? Should I look at the short-term plan (which is important, because I quit my full-time job and don't have an income right now), or should I be brave and build a slow but strong career that will be much more rewarding in the long term?
Well, I chose the option that sucks a little more right now, but which I believe is the best for my writing career. I am remaining fully Independent.
That means that I am putting this book out myself. That all Marketing decisions come from me. That all rights belong to me and no one else. And that no one else has the power to decide how this story gets told but me.
And I'm very excited about that. Publishing a book isn't easy, not by a long shot. But when you're someone thirsty for knowledge like me, who loves doing research, who is organized to an extreme, and who has produced big projects before... I think this was the natural conclusion I would arrive about this decision.
As someone with story, film, and marketing knowledge, it makes sense to retain the rights to my story. It makes sense to maintain the power of decision. Even if the amount of work is ridiculous. And even if it's a gigantic risk that might not be worth it for years to come, I know I have to believe and bet on myself.
It's about time.