It’s so interesting that you call it your circling process and that you write in 10-15K chunks. If I abandon a story it is usually between those milestones as well. I wonder if my drafting process is similar to yours and I get stuck at the 10-15K mark because I’m not drafting the RIGHT story!
It’s so great to read about a process similar to my own! For some books, I am always circling, and for others, it’s full speed ahead 24/7. Right now, I’m on two circling stories, and it feels slow but it feels *right*.
I write and edit as I go in a very similar way! If someone asks what "draft" I'm on (after all these years), it's truly impossible to pick a number. When i get majorly stuck, it's usually because I'm trying to force a scene that I *want* in the story, but is actually an unrelated tangent that doesnt fit organically in the plot. I did finally reach the end (climax and immediate aftermath, but not final pages of resolution.) To write those, I NEED to know exactly how it starts, and the first 25% has been rewritten and still isn't quite right. So I've started rewriting in reverse order, chapter by chapter, to ensure everything leads up to what comes next. (Scrivener is ideal for this.) I'm back to about 15% and it's working so far. Thank you for validating my working style! I am curious to hear about your listening technique too.
I'm intrigued by your circling process. I do something similar, but primarily for the scene I'm currently working on. But if the scene I'm writing refers to previous scenes, I do go back and scan/reread/sometimes edit those scenes, mainly to ensure consistency. And thank you for your link to your free novel revision course!
"This is where I often urge people to find outside readers." Yes. However, other writers make lousy beta readers. A writer's instinct is to urge you to write like them, and since hardly anyone can write, what good is that? What you want are passionate readers of your genre. And people who owe you nothing, otherwise they'll just lie.
Thank you so much for answering my question!! As an intuitive writer for pacing I completely get it as you just know. I'm learning to trust my own writing process, and it helps immensely to see that you do it your own way. I really love Becca Syme's "Question The Premise" because not every method or way works for everyone. This past year has been all about learning what works for me and accepting it instead of fighting it. Have a wonderful time on tour!!!
Thank you so much for this article! The "plow ahead no matter what and fix it later" mindset and challenges like NaNoWriMo saved me when I was just starting out with writing and would overthink the same paragraph for hours and never get anywhere... but now I wonder if more frequent rereading as a deliberate part of the process would be more useful. Right now I'm sitting on three different fairly long novels where I feel like I've lost the emotional thread and need to reread the whole thing from the beginning to pick it up again, but it's so much reading and reevaluating, with so much riding on it, that my brain puts it into the Insurmountable Task category and doesn't want to just pick a novel and sit down and do it. Once I start getting somewhere again I'll have to incorporate an "every X pages, reread the last bit" practice, and try to replace the "no no no forward momentum ONLY" urgings with "sometimes circling back IS generating forward momentum."
Also really encouraging to hear the perspective of another emotion-focused writer - sometimes I feel like everyone I know is either a straight Pantser or has no trouble outlining from on high and then having the characters Do The Thing. I need to have some idea of the direction I'm going, but things always look different when you're outlining vs. when you're right there in the scene with all the context and details and feelings in place to inform characters' decisions. But a lot of writing advice (that I've seen, anyway) doesn't seem to be geared toward that sort of mindset or its challenges, and it can be easy to fall into "why aren't any of these tips and processes working for me" when sometimes they just... don't work for you. So thank you for sharing your personal methods and the ways you approach problems!
Sorry for the whole essay there; it's just been a bit of a light-bulb moment for me... and now I want to dig into all that rereading I have to do. Thank you again, and good luck and safe travels on the tour!
So. Much. Yes! I love your description of your circling process and layering (what you talk about in https://stdennard.substack.com/p/an-easy-trick-for-showing-instead post)--I do both as well. Even though I wrote my upcoming series while on a work-hiatus, I found that I needed to go back and read what I had written in a previous writing session to get back in the "groove" with the story and in the characters' heads & hearts before continuing with their story. I talked to myself... a LOT... and read the words out loud to better hear the pacing and find where the layers were missing (mostly because I had it in my head and I only typed out the dialogue without the reactions). Then I could fill in the what was happening in their heads or around them. And don't get me started on draft counts... Each month or major edit session I created a new file. Book one in the series is sitting at version 20-c! But I'm close... Version 21 will be the line edits from my editor.
Very much enjoy how you go against the norm. 47th draft feels fitting. Why pump it all out and have to start again where our head and heart were in that moment. Thanks for the advice.
Love this advice 💕
It’s so interesting that you call it your circling process and that you write in 10-15K chunks. If I abandon a story it is usually between those milestones as well. I wonder if my drafting process is similar to yours and I get stuck at the 10-15K mark because I’m not drafting the RIGHT story!
It’s so great to read about a process similar to my own! For some books, I am always circling, and for others, it’s full speed ahead 24/7. Right now, I’m on two circling stories, and it feels slow but it feels *right*.
Hope the tour is fun!!
Oh snap! I'm exactly THIS! But without a formal outline. More like a couple checkpoints. LOL So nice to know I'm not the only one. Thank you for this!
I write and edit as I go in a very similar way! If someone asks what "draft" I'm on (after all these years), it's truly impossible to pick a number. When i get majorly stuck, it's usually because I'm trying to force a scene that I *want* in the story, but is actually an unrelated tangent that doesnt fit organically in the plot. I did finally reach the end (climax and immediate aftermath, but not final pages of resolution.) To write those, I NEED to know exactly how it starts, and the first 25% has been rewritten and still isn't quite right. So I've started rewriting in reverse order, chapter by chapter, to ensure everything leads up to what comes next. (Scrivener is ideal for this.) I'm back to about 15% and it's working so far. Thank you for validating my working style! I am curious to hear about your listening technique too.
I'm intrigued by your circling process. I do something similar, but primarily for the scene I'm currently working on. But if the scene I'm writing refers to previous scenes, I do go back and scan/reread/sometimes edit those scenes, mainly to ensure consistency. And thank you for your link to your free novel revision course!
"This is where I often urge people to find outside readers." Yes. However, other writers make lousy beta readers. A writer's instinct is to urge you to write like them, and since hardly anyone can write, what good is that? What you want are passionate readers of your genre. And people who owe you nothing, otherwise they'll just lie.
Thank you so much for answering my question!! As an intuitive writer for pacing I completely get it as you just know. I'm learning to trust my own writing process, and it helps immensely to see that you do it your own way. I really love Becca Syme's "Question The Premise" because not every method or way works for everyone. This past year has been all about learning what works for me and accepting it instead of fighting it. Have a wonderful time on tour!!!
Thank you so much for this article! The "plow ahead no matter what and fix it later" mindset and challenges like NaNoWriMo saved me when I was just starting out with writing and would overthink the same paragraph for hours and never get anywhere... but now I wonder if more frequent rereading as a deliberate part of the process would be more useful. Right now I'm sitting on three different fairly long novels where I feel like I've lost the emotional thread and need to reread the whole thing from the beginning to pick it up again, but it's so much reading and reevaluating, with so much riding on it, that my brain puts it into the Insurmountable Task category and doesn't want to just pick a novel and sit down and do it. Once I start getting somewhere again I'll have to incorporate an "every X pages, reread the last bit" practice, and try to replace the "no no no forward momentum ONLY" urgings with "sometimes circling back IS generating forward momentum."
Also really encouraging to hear the perspective of another emotion-focused writer - sometimes I feel like everyone I know is either a straight Pantser or has no trouble outlining from on high and then having the characters Do The Thing. I need to have some idea of the direction I'm going, but things always look different when you're outlining vs. when you're right there in the scene with all the context and details and feelings in place to inform characters' decisions. But a lot of writing advice (that I've seen, anyway) doesn't seem to be geared toward that sort of mindset or its challenges, and it can be easy to fall into "why aren't any of these tips and processes working for me" when sometimes they just... don't work for you. So thank you for sharing your personal methods and the ways you approach problems!
Sorry for the whole essay there; it's just been a bit of a light-bulb moment for me... and now I want to dig into all that rereading I have to do. Thank you again, and good luck and safe travels on the tour!
So. Much. Yes! I love your description of your circling process and layering (what you talk about in https://stdennard.substack.com/p/an-easy-trick-for-showing-instead post)--I do both as well. Even though I wrote my upcoming series while on a work-hiatus, I found that I needed to go back and read what I had written in a previous writing session to get back in the "groove" with the story and in the characters' heads & hearts before continuing with their story. I talked to myself... a LOT... and read the words out loud to better hear the pacing and find where the layers were missing (mostly because I had it in my head and I only typed out the dialogue without the reactions). Then I could fill in the what was happening in their heads or around them. And don't get me started on draft counts... Each month or major edit session I created a new file. Book one in the series is sitting at version 20-c! But I'm close... Version 21 will be the line edits from my editor.
Very much enjoy how you go against the norm. 47th draft feels fitting. Why pump it all out and have to start again where our head and heart were in that moment. Thanks for the advice.