What you need to do before you write

 

 

The stereotypical representation of a fiction writer ala Hollywood is some guy sitting at a typewriter with a blank sheet of paper not having a clue what he will type and waiting for inspiration. He endures constant torture through every blank page he enters in his typewriter. But torture is the price of genius. This is the 1940s depiction of writing.

 

80 years later, torture is strictly optional. So is being male. If you sit down with no idea or ideas of what you are going to write, well yeah, your experience is going to be painful. Yes, I know certain people use this method and forswear any other, but I ‘m going to say it is not an effective use of a writer’s energy or talents.

 

You need to wait before you begin to write. You need to wait before you begin to write. You are not reading a typo. You need to wait before you begin to write.

 

When you get an idea write it down, somewhere. Write all your ideas down. Most writers have lists of possible ideas. The more ideas you write down the more ideas will come to you. When you want to, start thinking about your idea. Do any research on the idea that occurs to you. Think about it when you are driving in your car, on the bus, doing housework, before falling asleep, when you sit down and decide to think about it etc. But no pressure; this should be a fun thing. See your characters in your head and picture their interactions and dialogue like watching a movie. Go over in your head parts of the idea you have already figured out. This will prime your imagination to enlarge what you already have planned.

 

Whenever you come up with more ideas about your idea, write them down. This could be new characters, new action, backstory, or new encounters between characters, or dialogue or whatever.  Create a document with all your ideas and research about this idea. The more you do this the more you will find yourself thinking about your idea without deciding to think about it, and having ideas that expand your idea.

Going from idea to first draft is kind of like rolling a snowball down a snowy hill. It grows as it rolls along.

 

As you are doing this you will be putting down events that happen in your plot. At some point start organizing those events into an outline. When you are ready, complete your outline and then you are ready to start writing.

 

Because you have all this information does not mean when you write your first draft things won’t change. And because something is in your first draft does not mean it will remain in your next draft, or the next one, or the one after that. Yes, your work of fiction will have many drafts.