Writing Organically Can Be Messy

Writing Organically Can Be Messy

I write organically.

This sounds significantly less weird than the usual description of my writing process, which goes something like this: “I vomit out my first draft, which will be undeniably horrible, and then do most of the actual ‘writing’ in revision.” I guess that version is also organic in its own way, but it lacks a certain, er, decorum.

I’m fine with that. After all, I tell new writers all the time that honesty and transparency is essential as we walk this writing path. It can be messy.

That’s my writing process in a nutshell–messy. I do research and a bit of planning, but when I start writing, I have to relinquish the lead to my characters. I usually know where I’m going to end up, but only in the most general terms. I am often surprised by the turns the story takes, and sometimes my characters drive me crazy. I make my way from beginning to end. Start to finish. I type those magical words: THE END.

And then the real work begins.

The first draft and the final draft are more like third cousins twice removed than siblings. The characters are the same (mostly) but chapters get added or deleted, plot holes get shored up, and if something doesn’t work it may be time for a major overhaul. In the early days, I had a panic attack every time I had to delete a chunk of text, but over time, the novelty had faded and I’ve come to realize that this is just part of my process.

I am a discovery writer.

I love that the terms panster and plotter are being slowly retired. Discovery writer sounds so much more exotic, yes? It sounds like traveling, and I love to travel. Writing is a journey for me, so the term is accurate. I discover so many things about my characters, the setting, and the plot as I go along. I fill in my gaps in knowledge with reading and research. It’s a beautiful, disastrous process that I’ve come to love.

Not that I don’t sometimes daydream about being a plotter. A planner. In my non-writing life, I plan like crazy. I probably got some of my planning genes from my mother, but I’ve also learned that planning makes my life as a visually impaired person much easier to navigate. Why can’t I apply that to writing? Who knows. But I’ve tried, believe me.

Over the past decade, the market for writing tools has exploded. Scrivner, Plotter, Grammerly. AutoCrit, ProWritingAid, Atticus. On and on it goes. I love some of these tools. Scrivner has been huge in helping me lay things out and revise more efficiently, but so many of its features are lost on me because I can’t work them into my process. I just can’t. And it’s taken me years to realize that I am fine just as I am.

I can be a discovery writer. I can write organically and then spend months and years revising, and the end product will still be a good, quality product. And not only a product, but the culmination of my creativity and my passion to make change in the world. I write stories and characters that are interesting and engaging, and I hope that their journeys will provide a lens through which readers take in and gain perspective on some very tough social issues.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before the book hits the shelves and lands in the hands of readers, it has to be written, and as I said in the beginning, that first draft is terrible. Its purpose is to lay out the groundwork for the story. Piecing together scenes without transitions or attention to pacing, the end product is a choppy patchwork of ideas, some of which will never make it past this round. The first draft is full of plot holes, typos, inconsistencies, and bad writing. I brute force that initial draft out of my brain and onto the paper.

In a certain light, this could be seen as my own brand of planning. I know that the first draft is going to require rewriting, over and over, until it actually resembles the story I want to have someone else place eyes on. Then my first reader–my husband–tears it apart and the process begins again.

Though revision can be tedious, it’s also part of the discovery process for me. I’m immersing myself in the details of character and setting and plot to the point where I can picture myself in the story. The importance of this part of the journey cannot be overstated, because when I begin to lose myself in the story, I know I’m getting close to a time when readers will be able to do so too.

The bottom line: writing is a process and because it is creative, it’s going to look different for everyone. The process I’ve developed helps me wade through the darker topics I write about without going insane. It gives me space and distance in the right places so that my storytelling heart can do what it wants without breaking. To all the aspiring writers out there, whatever process you adopt–if it works for you–it’s good. It’s right. Embrace it, and keep those words flowing.

There’s really only one requirement to being a writer–you have to write.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips