*How* Do You Write? What's Your Process?

[Dana_M_Baird]

I've tried Word and found it to be a tool of the devil (just for fun, format your ms in Courier, do a word count, then reformat in Times New Roman and do another word count. Every time I tried it, it came up with different numbers).

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Oh man, I thought it would be funny to see that happen, but I just tried it...my stupid Word program doesn't have that glitch. I tried courier and a couple other fonts, same word count every time.
Maybe the Word program you had was just possessed...hmm...that could be fun a story idea. "The program of the devil made me write it!"

[Irishbookish]

MS Word is my all time favourite. I have no word count errors either...which means you may have a virus...uh-oh

[Capuchin]

No, I didn't have a virus, except in the sense that MS products are often compared to viruses.

I'm not the only one to have experienced it. Mark Terry said in his comment to Nathan Bransford's blog of 26Feb08 that he had the same problem.

In the version of Word I used (thankfully for only a short while), changing from fixed to proportional font screwed up a number of things.

In the crit group I belong to, I can always tell when someone is using Word because there will be an occasional page with a different number of lines, an ellipsis lacks the proper spacing, you can't tell the difference between 1/N and 1/M dashes, etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

If anyone is happy with Word, great, more power to them. But I found it takes far too much memory, changes things arbitrarily,  hides important choices in obscure menus, and crashes far too often.

I have too much to worry about when writing than to fight the word processor at the same time.

[Irishbookish]

I used to have a lot of problems with Word when I had an older operating system. The PC I have now is really fast and supports it rather well. I suppose for me it's better than my old typewriter I had when I was 16!!

PS - I was only joking about the virus (That's why I used all those funny robots!)

[noellethestar17]

I'm currently in the middle of working on my first novel, and I'm writing it in a notebook, pencil (sometimes pen) and paper. I find that the only way I can finish my work is if I just write without going back and editing. Otherwise I get too distracted and discouraged. I'm working on Chapter Eight and this is the closest I've ever come to finishing something, so I'd say this method is working well for me. I'm trying to dump my story onto the page, just get it down onto paper. I figure I can edit later.

[Capuchin]

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Irishbookish wrote:

I used to have a lot of problems with Word when I had an older operating system.

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I miss the days of WordStar running under CP/M on a 4MHz, 64K machine -- it had everything a writer needed, and because it didn't have all the frippery, it ran faster and smoother than Word on a 2GHz, 1GB under XP.

[Chalie_B]

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noellethestar17 wrote:

I'm writing it in a notebook, pencil (sometimes pen) and paper. I find that the only way I can finish my work is if I just write without going back and editing. Otherwise I get too distracted and discouraged.

Actually, you're writing in your head. We all are writing in our head. We then elect to translate it into a format that another (including our self) can take in. Some of us say it out loud over beers, some on scraps of beer-soaked napkins, (getting a theme here?) and some use a pencil and notebook. There's no right way to write, just like there's no right way to golf. Don't care how you get it in, just get it in the hole. There may be more efficient ways, but does not matter. What matters is: 1) you write in your head; 2) you write it down; 3) you throw away as much as you can because what's in your head did not translate well into what went on the alternate medium; 4) you try again.

I think this thread has reached its end. Now, newbies: what you really want to know is how seasoned writers achieve those incredible works, and all I have to say to that is: learn the elements of the craft. Learn that a word has subtle shades of meaning that you can put to good use; that what happens has more than just antecedents and consequences; that character is what a person employs to make decisions, while personality is what people employ to react; that hardly any question asked by a person is ever directly answered, but that indirect answer tells all. Things like that. And read, steal, employ, steal, and read.

[Brandi_R]

I'm in the notebook camp. There's just something to the rhythm of it for me. And then the transition to the computer becomes a part of the revision process. There's a deliberateness to putting the words into that different format.

Have any of you tried rewriting a draft from scratch? (Meaning you retype the entire piece rather than just working within an already existing document.) It can be a good way to recreate that deliberateness if you do a first draft on the computer. You might even try rewriting the piece without looking at the original. Anything to get the mind out of the anchor of the original, first-draft wording. You might go back and keep some of the original phrasing, but you'll probably surprise yourself with what you do in that draft.

[Irishbookish]

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Brandi_R wrote:

Have any of you tried rewriting a draft from scratch? (Meaning you retype the entire piece rather than just working within an already existing document.) It can be a good way to recreate that deliberateness if you do a first draft on the computer. You might even try rewriting the piece without looking at the original. Anything to get the mind out of the anchor of the original, first-draft wording. You might go back and keep some of the original phrasing, but you'll probably surprise yourself with what you do in that draft.

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I have done this a few times, and it is a good way to freshen it all up and fine tune, however there are a few dangers that writers should take care with when embarking on this mammoth task. I suppose it also depends on your goal - to change a dreary storyline, or to fine tune and sort your draft.

You need to take care that you do not shift the storyline, because at this point your brain will be sick of the sight of it, and may decide to change parts which ultimately alter the storyline, and in doing so change what you orginally set out to create.

Another thing is that your brain, (having read and re-read this story a multitude of times already..) will supply you with a certain piece of writing that seems to fit well into where you are at the time, and so you merrily type it all down, thinking how clever you are only to find with annoyance that the same piece of writing exists further down.

Fine tune and tidy but keep within the boundaries of the original structure unless you actually set out to change it.

[starfaery]

For me I can write anywhere and with anything that's available. I just need something to write on either its pen and paper or on computer screen. But usually its on a computer screen because I write so much and my mind works very fast. When I type I can keep the follow moving forward. Writing by hand became difficult once I started writing through a 200 page (double sided) notebook a day. I really love to write in a cafe where I can watch and listen to people around me.

[VampireVal]

I write my actual stuff on my computer, but I have journals and random pieces of paper I write anything that comes to mind on about the characters or plot.

[insertname]

I write at school with a pencil and paper since I cannot tote my laptop around, but mostly its just musings that never form into a story. I usually write on my laptop because of the ability to quick fix things, spell check, etc.

Microsoft Word, hands down. I'm still trying to figure out all the features on Open Office (two years later) and I've never really understood Mac's version.

I'm a very descriptive writer, I don't focus much on dialogue but more on setting the mood, so as I write I like to go back and add a different or better word to describe the scene.

[Chalie_B]

Can we get off the merits of tools? Next we'll be discussing the relative unimportance of Pilot versus Sharpies in labelling manuscript boxes. Here's an idea: let's discuss writing.

Say you're faced with a character that's standing in a graveyard, not too far from where the recovered body of a murdered and disfigured teenager has recently been buried. Your character has two of something in a pocket. Now what?

What questions do you, the writer, ask of yourself? Here's a few of mine:

1. Did they know each other?
2. Should they know each other?
3. Is the connector between the two what's in th pocket?
4. Do I have dialogue?
5. If I don't want to say how a character feels, what can I do to show what the character is feeling, without using a single adjective or adverb!?

[Dana_M_Baird]

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Chalie_B wrote:

Can we get off the merits of tools? Next we'll be discussing the relative unimportance of Pilot versus Sharpies in labelling manuscript boxes. Here's an idea: let's discuss writing.

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Well, the original question was about tools:

Davelo Wrote:

What I'd like to know is what techniques people use to write -
Do you write with pencil and paper, or do you do it all on the computer?
Which program do you prefer if you use a computer for you writing? Why?
Do you do a combination of pencil and paper/computer writing, and why?
I know these seem like weird questions, but I would be very interested in reading your answers.

I have been using a computer and MS Word to do my writing. I'd like to know if there are alternatives that I'd like better. Thanks very much.

With the original question posed, the responses have been quite valid.  The tools that writers use can be just as important as the words themselves.

Chalie:  Your excersize is very intriguing - it merits its own thread. 

Dana Baird

www.danambaird.com

[Chalie_B]

Although the original question has a part that asks "what marker on paper do you use" the Topic is: How* Do You Write? What's Your Process?"

And I hate to be a Writer Nazi about this, but to make any suggestion that "The tools that writers use can be just as important as the words themselves" is absolutely absurd! Important to whom? The writer? Certainly no reader of Exodus gives a hoot it was scrawled onto a surface with a reed dipped into what? Ibex blood?

Not one writer I know puts any value on any tool other than the brain that first forms the word: all have used a variety. Unless we're conducting a survey to assess which is the most favorite way for writers to get ink on paper, there's no  value in the discussion, especially for novices. And as for the survey: it's been done. Ask Staples; they conclude the ball point pen is the most commonly used tool for committing words initially on paper, and the computer is the most commonly used electronic tool. Go to Staples, pick.

In the words of a famous living American Philosopher, ours as writers is to "git er done." Any writer, every writer, will git er done with whatever is handy; he or she tends to keep handy what is most familiar and easiest to use, or which will not interfere with the flow from the brain to the recipient medium. No clay tablets anymore at Staples. Lots of pen and paper.

If there were world and time enough, Hell, I'd use a turkey quill. Might make me think twicer before commiting a word onto an expensive piece of paper. But with $.29 pens and less than a penny sheets of paper, who cares? So we let the words flow injudiciously. BUT, we're writers, and that means a commitment to rewriting, which is where the original thread idea wanted to lead us: "What's you process?"

Much more interesting, to this old writer as well as to the newbie he once was, are: where does the germinal idea come from? What does that germinal idea want to flourish? (For example, I usually start with a memory picture, or imagined picture, and look for two other focussing elements, such as an opposing force, an accident, a motivation or promotional incident, and then I listen for the first words out of a character's mouth. Who is she or he?) Then I would like discussion on the revision process. What's it take to toss out a 9000 word start that's entirely wrong?

Creativity is employeed awareness, not the selection of the crowbar. Let's be creative here, is all I ask.

[Julie_Joan_Poss]

I like to type it. I'll get it done faster, and/or have more time to think about what I want to write. Plus, using pen and paper gives hand craps easily... ;]

[Capuchin]

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Chalie_B wrote:

to make any suggestion that "The tools that writers use can be just as important as the words themselves" is absolutely absurd!

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I respectfully disagree.

The tools create a wide variety of subtle forces which influence the written word.

One of the major aspects is the way the tools act as throttles. The classic example is in stream-of-consciousness writing -- lacking any sort of instantaneous thought-to-text process, you always have to 'pause' your thinking while the transcription works to catch up. Since the next thought you want to put down is always there, you subconsciously mull it over before its turn to be written down arrives. The length of the delay increases the molding/formatting/flow of the next sentence. The longer the process takes, the less stream-of-consciousness and the more deliberate the work becomes.  

If you take three writers who are so close in style/form/plots/theme that their work is virtually indistinguishable from one another, give them all the same story idea, and supply the first with an enhanced text-to-speech program, the second with a quill pen, and the third with a hammer, chisel, and a pile of marble slabs, I guarantee the stories they turn out will be significantly different.

The tools also affect a writer's mood, which has a very serious effect on the end product. A word processor that you have to fight every step of the way because its 'features' require constant attention is going to change the tone of the story -- very few people can maintain a lighthearted flow when they're irritated by mindless minutiae. Just as a misplaced phrase, incorrect grammar, or a gross misspelling can take a reader out of a story, so, too, endless distractions take the writer out of the writing process.

If there is a writer who receives stories as a muse-gifted whole, and they need only to put it onto paper exactly as it exists in their mind, then the tools would be unimportant. But for us mere mortals, how easily the tools allow us to transfer our thoughts on paper, restyle the phrasing, and otherwise act as wordsmiths has a major impact.

It is the same in all crafts -- an excellent cabinetmaker can still do wonderful work even if their only tool is a dull axe, a fantastic surgeon needs only a jackknife, old dishtowels, and a sewing kit to perform an appendectomy, and a great chef can turn leftovers from an army mess hall into a gourmet dinner, but they all find their work much easier and the results much more satisfying if they have proper tools which are comfortable and familiar.

Writing is the same. It is a craft, not a holy vocation. There is no sanctity in the words and phrases which form in our minds -- what is important is how they look on paper, and that is affected by the tools we use.

[Chalie_B]

I didn't say they had no influence. I disagreed, and called absurd, this notion: "The tools that writers use can be just as important as the words themselves."

By the time a reader reaches your word, there's nothing equal in importance to the word. And all other influencing devices or mannerisms pale in power. Try this test: Write a really good sentence using seven different media. Then remove words. See how powerless the media is? Words do not exist without media to ride in, but the cart can either be wooden or plastic; makes no diff.

[Brandi_R]

Interesting debate on whether tools are important. Indeed, they're part of the process. To some writers they're very important. To others, not as much. Check out this interesting article by novelist Mary Gordon: "Putting Pen to Paper, but Not Just Any Pen or Just Any Paper." A sensitive look at how the accouterments of writing can be an important part of one writer's process.

Still, there's a good point here—that this is just one part of the process. So while we keep discussion going here on this topic, I've posted a new weekly thread on another aspect of the process inspired by this debate. (Again, it's just one other aspect of the process.) Stop by and check it out at the top of the board. Don't hesitate to post your own threads, too, whenever you want to introduce new topics.

Chalie_B, I do hope you take Dana's suggestion and post your great exercise as its own thread. It's a fantastic prompt and could generate great discussion—and creativity. And do check out the weekly topics. They often focus on craft. Last week's topic was on beginnings.

[FictMan09]

I use MS Word. I find that features like spellchecker, word count, thesaurus and grammar check are indispensable to me when I write. I also use a program called "SayzMe", it's a text reader that reads what I have written back to me. I find that I tend to read my text as I know it should be instead of as I have actually written it. SayzMe reads it back to me as I have written it and allows me to hear my mistakes that I might overlook when reading my writing.

That's my two cents, hope it helps.