Greetings
After introducing myself and setting my context as a gay male writer born in the early 1960s in the last two posts, I’m now ready to move on to posting my take on the writing process and the craft. First, I don’t think for a moment that I have any greater insight into writing than any other. That would be one hell of a presumption. However, after five novels and nearly a dozen shorter works, I’m confident in what works for me. And trust me, that confidence was hard won.
I’m always fascinated to hear other artists talk about their process and technique because each creator and their process is as unique as the art they create. In the beginning, I was desperately seeking an “in” on this writing thing. I had the idea or ideas for stories. That was no problem, but how did you wrangle them? Find order in the chaos and begin getting words on the page?
Broadly speaking, I found information on writing fell into three broad categories: First, were the discussions on the elements of Story, such as plot, character, conflict, setting, and so forth. These, overall, were straight forward and generally helpful, but not what I really craved. Basically, I had learned enough of this in high school English classes to get me going. What I needed was guidance on how to write. It’s the difference between how to dribble a basketball and how to actually play a game.
Secondly, enter the how-to-write books, classes, workshops, and so on. The amount of money being made off want-to-be writers is staggering and disheartening. I often despair that writers are an especially gullible subgroup of creativities. At least for me, none of these were helpful—a waste of time and money.
Of course, as an individual, I haven’t sampled all the writing classes or books out there, but the ones I encountered all presented the One Holy Method: You must outline. You need to have character sketches made up and your world building must be tight and complete. And the writing world seemed to have a fetish for index cards—lots and lots of index cards. As mentioned above, none of this—especially the whole outlining thing. It just didn’t not work—it froze me out—locked up my creativity.
Thirdly, what I did find helpful was authors simply sharing how they wrote. Not as a mandate of how it should be done, but one way among many, that worked for them. As was pointed out to me, after a ridiculously long time, you didn’t have to outline—at all—to be a writer. In fact, as I learned, many writers don’t or don’t all the time.
I came to realize it’s hard to sell a book or charge for a writing course if you share the truth: There are no rules for writing, except, just start. Find what works for you, but you must start—now!
So here is my advice to wanna-be writers: Just do it. Humans are innate storytellers. You will get better with practice, as in everything, but you can’t get better if you don’t start. So start now!
The Plotter—Pantser Spectrum
As I mentioned, plotting out a story beforehand didn’t work for me, and it wasn’t until a very wise writer friend laughed at me and gently said, “You know Stephen, a lot of writers don’t outline. They just write.”
They just write? What was this heresy? No index cards? Was that allowed?
She was talking about being a pantser, or a discovery writer, which I like better. Unlike a plotter, who plans all or most of a story out ahead of time, a pantser wings it. Writing by the seat of the pants, discovering the story as it unfolds before them, much as the reader experiences it. Of course, like most things in real life, it isn’t one or the other. There is a spectrum from the pure pantser to the detailed plotter. And, as I’ve learned, it can also vary by the project you are working on. But, in my opinion, this is the first, and again, in my case, the most important thing you can learn about your own process. I know it sounds silly, but not knowing this kept me from writing for thirty years!
Setting the Stage for Discovery
Most of my stories start with a stage—the setting. Then the characters enter. However, I’m southern and one of the hallmarks of Southern Fiction is setting as character. We are very aware of the histories and traditions that are embedded within our places and how this affects us. So in a way, for me, the setting is the primal character in a story. Is it a source of comfort for the other characters or one of conflict?
When my characters walk on stage I don’t know much more than their name and a vague idea of what the look like. I have an idea of their personality and what they’re doing there. I learn more as others enter and conflicts arise. Most of my world building happens as the story goes along as well. I find it’s too easy to get lost in the back-story and never actually get to the story. In short, I have a place. People, or people like things, show up in that place, and things happen. In other words, story happens.
Next month, I’ll show how this process worked in a short story that led to dragons worming their way into my nice contemporary fiction series. Damn dragons!
If you have any questions or things you’d like me to write about please comment below!
Pax,
Stephen
About Stephen del Mar
I’d really like these posts to be interactive, so please comment below and let me know what’d you like to hear about.
Stephen del Mar lives in the Tampa Bay area and writes in the Southern Literary Tradition. His stories are character driven with rich settings. They often have a touch of the paranormal, supernatural, or magical realism.
Although he writes about serious subjects, they are sweetened with humor and wit. He says, “It’s a southern thing.”