How Writers Write

During the final rewrite phase of my novel, Misfit McCabe, leading up to publication, I worked with a class of young readers to preview the manuscript and provide feedback. How Writers Write discusses a variety of approaches to the writing process.

I'd like to share with you a little about the writing process. Of course, I can't tell you how all authors write, but I can share my process as well as those of some authors I know.

There is a popular theory that if you had a room of monkeys typing on a keyboard and infinite amount of time, they would be able to replicate all of the great works of fiction or indeed any book ever written. So I guess my biggest problem is not having enough monkeys to do the writing for me.

Another theory is that to write a story, you start at the beginning, keep writing until you reach the end and then stop. This sounds easy, but when you start to put the words down all sorts of questions start cropping up. What is the beginning? How will I know when to end? How do I get from the beginning to the end?

Some authors create a very detailed outline of their story before they start to write it. They need to know every plot point before they can start writing the story. Once they have all of the details mapped out, they put the words on the page and the characters in the story follow the map.

Some authors don't know where the writing is going to take them, they don't map out their story line first, but just start with a concept (a setting, a character, an event) and see where it takes them. They approach writing with a "let's see what happens next" attitude.

I actually fit in between the two. I need to know the basics of my story, but as I write, there are twists that happen that I didn't know were going to happen. It's almost like the story takes on a life of its own and the characters go in directions that I didn't know they were going to go in, but eventually, they meet me back at the story line that I started with. It's actually kind of fun when your characters start taking on a life of their own, because at that point, they start writing the story for you (maybe I do have a roomfull of monkeys somewhere).

One thing that is very important to me is that I need to know my characters very well. They need to become real people to me. I imagine different scenarios (that are not in the story) and need to know how they will react. I have imaginary conversations with my characters to get a sense of who they are and what their opinions and attitudes are.

Not all authors have to know their characters like I do, but for me, if my characters are not like real people to me, I can't write the story. So, how did I start Misfit McCabe? I had the basic story line from a dream I had and thought it would make a good story. Next, I had to get to know Katie really well because she was the main character and therefore the most important for me to know. Why was she a rebel? How did feel about the things happening in her life?

Did I have the entire story from the dream? No. Just the basic story of Katie being sent to live with her Uncle and a few things that happen to her there. I knew that she and her Daddy loved each other very much, but she had to leave anyway. Once I had decided what the major events would be for the story and knew Katie, then I started to write the story.

One very important thing to know about writing is that writing the story is just the beginning. Once you get the story down on paper (or on a computer file), you then go back and re-read and revise. You are looking for mistakes (like missing words and incorrect punctuation) as well as changing some of the story (like adding a burning shed to the beginning). EVERY writer makes changes to their work because they always find something that they want to change, something that will make it better. No one starts with a story that doesn't need changes. It doesn't matter how many times I review a story, I will always see something that I want to change, so for me the hard part is determining when the story is good enough.

One teacher I had once told me that the ability to write a story was the ability to keep your behind in the chair long enough. Inspiration of what to write is the wonderful part because your brain is bubbling with ideas and they take hold and haunt you until you put them down on paper. Then comes the work of staying in a chair long enough to get the whole story down - and review it more times than you can count.

LK Gardner-Griffie is the author of young adult novel, Misfit McCabe, which is available now through Lulu.com , Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.com in paperback and as a Kindle edition at Amazon.com.