Organize your thoughts each day
It’s hard to begin writing anything with only a vague idea of what we want to write. Those empty moments when we’re not sure what we want to say are when self-doubts begin to rise, Excuses invade our minds, and we decide we don’t really need to write today after all.
If we begin each day knowing where we want to start, we can begin with focus, avoiding the Zen concept of “monkey mind” that Natalie Goldberg talks about in Writing Down the Bones.
Create an Outline
One trick I use is to write an outline before I start writing the first draft. For a novel, my outline is a blueprint of what I think will happen in each chapter. Notice I said what I think will happen. As most writers will tell you, once you’ve started writing often the story or the characters will take you in a different direction than you intended.
Those first ideas are simply a tool to get you thinking through your story, a way to get you writing something. If the ideas aren’t coming for me while I’m sitting not so patiently at my computer, then I’ll do a free write, or what my students call a brain dump. A free write is simply that–a brainstorming activity where I’ll write whatever comes to mind about a character, the setting, the theme, or the plot.
There are so many ways to free write. You can handwrite your ideas into a notebook, or if you’re more digitally inclined you can create an online document where you write down your ideas. You can write whatever you want, about the story you’re writing or not. Sometimes writing about something other than your story can help get the creative juices flowing.
Breaking Through the First Draft Blues
Free writing helps me break through the first draft blues. Free writing is exactly what it sounds like—you’re free to write whatever comes to mind. Some writers use a timer, set it for 10, 15, 20 minutes, and either type or handwrite whatever occurs to them during that time. You can write about your historical story or you can write about anything else. The point isn’t what you’re writing—the point is that you’re writing. As Natalie Goldberg says, writing is a physical activity, and writing itself, writing anything, can get the juices flowing.
Free writing was a great help to me when I was writing Victory Garden and I was completely stumped for the beginning. I knew the ending, as I usually do, but I didn’t know where to start. I tried this beginning and that beginning and nothing was working for me. I became so frustrated I didn’t touch the manuscript for weeks. Finally, one day I started free writing about the women fighting for the vote. I wasn’t writing a scene or anything in particular. I just imagined my main character in a room with other women fighting for the vote and I wrote what I saw.
As I was free writing I remembered a tidbit from my research, the day when women from the suffrage movement went to the White House to meet President Woodrow Wilson, so I incorporated that into my passage. After a bit of revising and editing, I ended up with what did in fact become the beginning of the novel. The women at the White House scene was even published separately as a short story in a literary journal. From nothing I got a whole lot of something, all from some random free writing where my only intention was to get myself going.
Using Journal Prompts To Clear the Cobwebs
Sometimes it helps to answer specific questions while you’re gathering your first thoughts about a story. If you’re stumped, here are some questions that may help you. You don’t have to answer any of these questions, or even all of them. Some writers like to know the ending of the story before they begin (me!) and others like to discover the ending organically as they work through the story. Pick and choose the questions that will help clear away the cobwebs.
Brainstorming Questions
1. What is the general topic of the story you want to write?
2. What is the setting of your story? Where specifically will it take place?
3. Who is your main character? What do you know about your characters so far?
4. Who are your supporting characters?
5. Who is your antagonist?
6. What is the problem your main character(s) will be facing?
7. How will the problem be resolved? How will your story end? What is the last image the reader will take away from your story?
8. What is the theme or deeper meaning of your story?
9. How does your main character change from the beginning of your story to the end?
10. How many pages a day will you write?
11. How will you organize your schedule in order to find time to write?
12. How will you deal with writer’s block?
This last question might seem odd, and it is, but if you have a plan in place when writer’s block hits, and it will, it helps to alleviate the anxiety on those days when you can’t remember how to spell your name.
Anne Lamott’s Short Assignments
I’m a big fan of Anne Lamott’s idea for short assignments. In Bird By Bird, Lamott shares the idea of writing what you can see through a one-inch picture frame—one paragraph where you describe one scene from your story. Short assignments take away the inherent fear that comes with tackling a larger project like a novel or nonfiction book.
When you think, “I want to write a historical novel about the fall of Rome,” the grandness of the task can be paralyzing. If you say instead, “I’m going to write a paragraph describing Rome burning,” that is doable.
For my first drafts, I have a 500 word a day goal. Five hundred words may not sound like a lot, but it’s enough to move the story forward and not so much that it feels overwhelming. As soon as a first draft feels overwhelming I’ll avoid it with every Excuse I have, and I have plenty of them, I promise you. If the juices are flowing I’ll keep writing. Other times getting to that 500th word feels like root canal. Once I’ve met my 500 words, though, I can feel good because I met my goal. When I’m writing a first draft my main priority is to make progress every day, and 500 words works for me.
Oscar Collier suggests writing three pages a day, which, if you’re typing on double-spaced pages, works out to about 750 words. Some people give themselves a 1000 word a day goal. Yes, you’ll read articles about people who write 5000, 10000, even 15000 words a day. If that’s you, cool. For the rest of us, short, attainable assignments can make the difference between whether or not our projects get written.
How Else Can You Organize Your Thoughts?
Other get-yourself-going activities include mind maps, bullet points, or the character sketch we’ll look at in a later chapter. The point now is to gather ideas so you have something to work with when you sit down to write. Sometimes I keep a writing journal where I keep track of everything about my current work in progress that occurs to me. When I’m stumped I pull out my journal and review the ideas I’ve already come up with, and then I’ll use some of those ideas as the basis for my writing that day.
Don’t skimp on the prewriting. As a long-time writing teacher, I know that a lot of writers want to skip over the prewriting process. But I think you’ll find prewriting time well spent. There are writers who do all right without any prewriting, and that’s great. For me, the more I write, and the longer I teach writing, the more I find that the idea-gathering process makes for an easier first draft.
Where do I begin each day?
Wherever I want. Most days I begin with my chapter blueprint and I type out my ideas for the next scene the best I can. I say the best I can because my first drafts are little more than quick descriptions, bland character interactions, and a ton of banal dialogue.
“Hi! How are you?”
“I’m great! And you?”
“Oh, you know. I’ve got that leaky wart on my big toe…”
I’m not kidding, by the way. My first draft dialogue really is that bad.
For me, the first draft is only a fleshed out outline. As the amazing Terry Pratchett said, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
As I’m writing a first draft I keep pushing forward, one word after another, until I’m finished with the story as I understand it at that time. I give myself few rules while writing first drafts. Writing a first draft is hard enough without following arbitrary rules I’ve set up for the sole purpose of making myself more miserable. As long as I’m producing words that push the story forward, it’s all good.
By the way, you don’t have to outline as you begin your first draft. That’s simply my preference. I know writers who outline, and they do it to keep their thoughts organized, as I do. Others find outlining too stifling, like they’re trapped within the imaginary boundaries they’ve created. They prefer to take a creative leap each day and see where the story carries them.
That’s why I love writing fiction. You don’t have to do anything. There’s no right way. Everything about the first draft is about toying with words, playing with ideas, exploring possibilities.
Explore away.