How to be a writer

Now, I'm not here to give advice on how to be an author because I'm not one yet.  Authors are published.  But anyone can be a writer by following these four steps:*



1. Read
Read books in your genera.  Read books that people recommend to you.  Read something you thought you'd never read.  Read books on writing books. Read actively with a pen and highlighter.  Note what works.  Edit what doesn't.

2. Observe
Notice what's going on in the world. Experience the world though all your senses. How things look, feel, touch, taste, smell. Listen to how people talk. Observe how the passage of time feels when you're doing something you enjoy or when you are board. How does it feel to look down from a very tall building? What's it like trying to walk though your house in the dark to find the light switch? Weave these experiences into your characters and story to connect with the audience.

3. Meet other writers
Talk about the craft.  Read and critique each other's works.  I have notices a huge leap in my own writing ability after starting a writer's critique group last year. Listening to what others have to say about my work helps me improve and looking critically at other writers works also hones my writing ability.

4. Write
I know it sounds simple, but this can be the hardest part. To be a writer, you must write. You don't have to be a good writer at first. Like everything in life, we get better with practice. Write when you feel inspired. Write when you don't feel like writing. Write when you are alone. Write in your head all day long. Just. Write.

*Actually, you only have to do step 4, but the first steps really help if you want to be a good writer.

Setting vs World Building

A story's setting comes in layers--place, time, culture, foreground and background, etc. When I work on setting, sometimes I close my eyes and imagine the place in all its minute details. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures. The people, plants and animals. What time of year is it? What's the weather like? Is the sky clear or overcast? How does the air taste? What is in the distance? What is immediately close by.

I may take the time to write all this down, but usually I just imagine it in my head, and then I pick key details to weave through the story. This gives the reader a sense of place and it gives them a chance to imagine the setting in their heads, too.

As a fantasy writer, I hear a lot about "world building" as if it is unique to speculative fiction. World creation is a huge part of writing regardless of genre. Anyone who writes a work of fiction is creating a world (sometimes non-fiction, too). I don't care if its realistic or romance, fantasy or sci-fi, or whatever. Part of writing is to create a world for the characters to exist in. The book could be set in New York City or Buford, Wyoming, but we can't assume the reader has been there. The writer must build the world.

I find creating realistic places difficult. If I make my setting an acual place, I'm confined to the reality of that place. For example, the laws of physics have to apply. More importantly, I think, writing a real place means recreating what already exists. Stephanie Meyer wrote twilight with out ever visiting Forks, Washington. When I first read Twilight, I found her descriptions of the High School to be very odd. Seriously, what school in the north has separate buildings for each classroom? Google street view is fine, up to a point, but if you really want the reader to immerse themselves in a place, the author must immerse herself in a place.

Writing fantasy has it's own pitfalls as well. Though the setting is fantastical, it must also be believable. This is a fine line to walk.  Building a fantasy world means creating your own universe with your own laws of physics (or laws of magic or whatever).  The key to this is consistency. Create rules for the world and live by them.  There is one sticky point for me in the Harry Potter series. (Which is hard to find because J.K Rowling does a super job of world building). The thestrals that pull the school carriages appear to those who have seen death.  After Cedric's death, Harry get's on the carriages the end of HP4 without seeing the thestrals.  However, he can see them at the start of HP5. Fantasy authors can re-imagine the world as they wish, but being consistent to the rules of your own world is crucial.

Creating a believable fantasy world involves immersing myself in this one. I pay attention to my surroundings using all my senses.  How do things look, taste, feel, smell, sound.  Also how does the passage of time feel? If my character is standing on top of a cliff looking down, how can I describe a sense of vertigo to give the imaginary cliff real depth?

I wrote most of my novel before traveling to Spain, but the experience of being in a uniquely different place helped me redefine and recreate my setting. I soaked in all my surroundings--the vague impressions, the little details--like I was looking at the world for the first time. I considered how culture shapes a place and the place shapes the culture. And I wove these nuances into my writing.

Then I came back home to the same, familiar surroundings. Somehow the world looked different because I was looking at it differently.  What shapes the places that I've always took for granted? How can see the familiar for the first time? Sometimes mundane occurrences like walking down the street can have new meaning if I am looking at them though the eyes of a writer.

5-step writing process: revising

Step 4: revising. Keep in mind, I do editing and revising at the same time.  However, they are different processes that happen at the same time.  I think many writers combine the editing and revising into one step.  But, for this post, I am going to talk about revising.  To see my thoughts on editing, check out my post on that topic.

After finishing my drafts, I spend a significant amount of time away from it, letting the chapters cool.  Later I can come back and look on it afresh. I alway read over my own writing before showing it to others.  Reading aloud helps me hear the flow and voice of my novel.  Getting other writers to critique my work is invaluable, but, as the author, the revision decisions remain solely my own.

If drafting is about daring to suck, revising is about daring to cut.  I hear writers talk about works as if they are their "baby." Revising is about improving your baby and making it grow and develop properly. I think the baby analogy falls a little short, though. Writing is like gardening. Brainstorming is when you pick the seeds at the garden store.  Drafting is planting those seeds.  The real work in gardening is the editing and revising. This is when you prune excess words. Weed out unnecessary adjectives. Water and cultivate the strong shoots until it flowers into something beautiful.

Consider how the flow and rhythm of the words effect the tone, mood and voice. For a scene with fast-paced action. Shorter sentences give a sense of movement and urgently. Something I've learned in the revising process is not to stop and describe what the sea monster looks like when it is about to crush my protagonists boat.  One word or phrase can create an image in the reader's head without going into all the grisly detail.  Sometimes time feels like it's slowing down for my characters. During these times I might linger on details creating a slow and easy feeling.

One part of revising is looking at the big picture. I can't be afraid to prune entire sections of my work.  The first thing I wrote when I started my novel was, unsurprisingly, the prologue--which I was absolutely in love with.  After three different beta readers told me it didn't add anything to the story.  I cut it out completely and reworked chapter three (a flashback) into the new prologue.  Amazing what linear story telling does.  That fixed several problems. The new opening is far more intriguing and there isn't a flashback scene breaking up the action later in the book.  I wove some of the original prologue into the rest of the story, but I cut out most of it because it wasn't necessary to tell the story.  It was necessary for me to write it as part of the process because it jumpstarted my creativity and because I learned to let it go.

Revising is about worrying over every sentence. I ask myself if every adverb and adjective is necessary, or is there an rich verb or noun that can say the same thing in one word. Example sentence: Stella walked slowly through the small city looking for a place to spend the night. Example revision: Stella meandered through the village in search of an inn. I received some advice once to never use the word walk in writing. Adjectives can tell us the manner in which the character walks, but a strong verb can do the same in one word. Meander replaces "walked slowly." Ambled or wandered work as well. each word tells us more about the manner of walking than saying "walked slowly" ever will. "Small city" doesn't tell us much, but using town or village gives a better sense to the reader about where there character is. Something that has helped me is the Roget's international Thesaurus.  I mean an actually book, not that thesaurus app on my phone. Roget's is organized by category. Pursuing the section on movement, for example, gives me choices that may not be an exact synonym for the word used.  Can you think of a different way to revise this sentence? Leave yours in the comments.

Once the first revision is complete, the process starts over again.  Editing and revising are both repeatable steps in the writing process because books are never done. In her poetry handbook, Mary Oliver talks about revision. "In truth, revision is an almost endless task. But it is endlessly fascinating, too, and especially in the early years it is a process in which much is learned" (p. 111)

References:

Oliver , M. (1994). A poetry handbook. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace & Co.