Everyone has a process whether they know it or not. If you plan on writing stories for a living, it’s best you learn that process now. Even if you go back through your old photos, see exactly what your process is for each story. It’ll help when you’re feeling stuck and maybe you realize, this is around the time I get tired of looking at that draft and need to binge a season of a show about teens running around the Southeast coast looking for treasure.
Having my process written down has helped me stay on track and get back on track after too many side-quests. I have it printed and hung up on my bulletin board and I wanted to talk about it just incase you needed an idea of where to start if you don’t have one.
Keep in mind, these can vary by story length, the reason for writing it, and et cetera. If you’re just writing it for yourself, you probably won’t go through several drafts. If you’re seeking to publish a short story through a magazine, you’d probably workshop it with readers a bit more often. Everything is up to you and how you work best.
Step 1: Brainstorm & Prep:
This is my favorite part besides line-editing. I use all of the things and documents to just think of what I want to write and what I want to convey. I usually have an idea, even if it’s just a line of something. I rarely go to my computer with zero vibes. I don’t think I’ve ever done that. There’s always an idea somewhere, but if you don’t have an idea, this is the time to draw upon anything bothering you. Really hate you roommate? Write about someone’s search for a new one. There’s always pain to verbalize and channel.
Step 2: Outline
Everyone’s not a Plotter and I understand that, but I would get stuck in the middle and die. Even if I only write a sentence for what happens in the beginning, middle, and end—it needs to be outlined for me to get anything done. Some people just know how it ends and that’s enough for them. Whatever works for you!
However, it’s easy to get trapped in the over-outlining phase. For Churchbred, I participated in Preptober. It takes place in October, the month before National Novel Writing Month. It is my favorite time to prep new long-form work, like novels, because it has a start and an end date.
Also, the promise of starting the novel on the first of November is a sure-fire way to get me to start come hell or high water. Plus, just because you’re writing the novel, that doesn’t mean you have to stop working on the outline or any background research. You just have to do it simultaneously, but it may distract you from the drafting so I try really hard to not do anymore research once I start until after my zero draft is over.
Step 3: Write the Zero Draft
Writing the zero draft is fun because I just have to get the words on the page. It’s my only job and I love it because there’s no pressure to be good. It just has to be written. I don’t think you should take the full thirty days to write the zero draft. You’re probably thinking, “girl, you’re insane. I can’t write fifty thousand words in less than thirty days.”
I think you can. It will require absolute delusion, weird stares in the grocery store, and being able to hop into your story any moment. You cannot demand uninterrupted hours at your desk while it’s cold and raining and burning your ‘Future Bestselling Author’ candle.
You may have to use your notes app to write a chapter while sitting in the doctor’s office waiting room. You may have to use the back of an envelope in the mechanic’s office to jot down that scene while getting an oil change. You may have to eavesdrop and copy an entire conversation someone had in the coffee shop.
The bottom line is, you have to write wherever and whenever, for as long as you possibly can until you’re done. Any chance you get to write, take it and run until you cross the finish line.
Step 4: Take a Break
When you’re done, take a break. Pat yourself on the back, celebrate the fact that you’ve written a novel, and try to get your brain to stop thinking about it for at least two weeks, but a month is preferable. Decide the amount of time you need to not think about it. Is it a few days? A few weeks? I think this will also depend on what you’re writing. I don’t think you’d need as much time away from a short story, but if it’s a heavy one, maybe you need a month. Trust yourself.
If it’s during November and you finish it at the end of November, take the rest of the year off. Just make sure you’ve got yourself a lovely present for finishing it. I recommend a small gift for the second you finish, cake is great, and then a huge gift for the end of the year towards the holidays. If you’re embarking on this venture before October or November, just have a really nice gift waiting.
Pro Tip: Ideally, every time you finish something related to the novel, you should treat yourself.
Step 5: Read Your Zero Draft
If all went well, you stopped thinking about your book during your break. So much so that you forgot you even wrote one. The next step is to actually read it and make sure it aligns with what your outline you wrote over a few months ago. If it doesn’t make notes on what needs to change in the next draft. I use a certain notebook to fill with my revision notes, but a note in your phone or a document is the best way to go because you’ll always have access to it.
I have been using a combination of notebooks, sticky notes, Canva whiteboard, an Ellipsus document, a spreadsheet, and a binder. It’s not the best and I know I’ve made a grave error that I will spend a long time correcting, but I’d rather you heed my warning and only use like one or two things.
Now, when you read your zero draft, you want to take all of the notes, even for future drafts, but you want to be zoomed out a.k.a do not worry about sentence structure or word choices. I just attended an online Reedsy conference and you should definitely check out my notes for that, but my favorite line was from Abi Pollokoff, where she said “be prepared to rebuild.”
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If you don’t know what needs to be improved give it to a reader that you absolutely trust. Someone that’s not going to nitpick the grammar or care that you have a wild amount of placeholders. Someone that can see the story and give you the best notes for big story changes.
Step 6: Write the First Draft
After you’ve decided on what needs to be done, it’s time to write the first draft. If you’re feeling bold and think you can work in the same document as your zero draft, go for it, but I think starting fresh and pulling whatever you need from that draft is a great way to challenge your brain to think of new words. Use that outline if you still like it and if it still aligns with the story. If it doesn’t, re-work the outline and then write the draft. You don’t have to write it as fast because your brain already knows: we did the hard thing, we wrote the book, we can definitely do it again.
Your brain might actually say the opposite, but I’m being hopeful.
Step 7: Reverse Outline
After you write the book—again, yay! Congratuf*ckinglations because that was hard. This is the best time to reverse outline before you take another break. Trust me. I took a break before I reverse outlined and put it off for so long because I just wanted to hop back into revisions and it was not fun.
Step 8: Take a Break
The more breaks the better. I think this one should be as long as possible to make sure you’re as objective as possible when you return.
Step 9: Send to Readers
During this break, you can send it out for feedback. It should be coherent enough to send to your trusted readers and one wild card if you’re feeling fearless. Again, we are looking for people who are not going to judge, be mean, super critical about things that don’t matter right now like grammar and typos, but they should be keeping an eye out for anything that doesn’t make sense, what’s working, and what’s not.
Either way, you send it to them and you don’t look at the draft or the feedback until the time is right. Whether that’s exactly when you receive the feedback (not recommended) or a week or two after receiving it.
Step 10: Compile Feedback
If you have people that actually gave feedback within the specified time frame and provided decent advice that didn’t want to make you run into traffic, congrats! You’ve done so much of the work, but now it’s time to do more. Are readers saying the same thing? Did they mention not feeling anything towards Character B or anything along those lines? It’s usually a sign that something needs to be adjusted.
Step 11: Revise. Revise. Revise.
Once you’ve got the feedback and structure down and it’s not moving, it’s time to zoom in a little and see how you can improve the story, chapter by chapter. Up the stakes without changing the structure too much, further immerse us in the scene, et cetera. Then you take a break, go back through it, zooming in again, and again. Each pass gets a break after until you’re ready to release it.
Step 12: Release It
This could be metaphorically if you’re querying or just working on it for you, but it could also be more literal if you’re publishing it yourself or independently. This could also mean sending it to a copy editor and then to a proofreader. It could also mean sending it for a manuscript critique. Either way, once you feel like “I can not look at this book anymore without losing my mind,” it’s time to release it (or take a break if you know there’s still work to be done).
That’s it. That’s my fool-proof writing process that I consult every single time I write a book. What would you change? How long or short are your breaks? Are you someone that absolutely cannot let anyone read anything until it’s perfect? Let me know in the comments.
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