Newsflash!

I’ve changed to a new web host!  This one offers more flexibility and better support for WordPress, so much more of my website works now.  For example, my contact page now works, as does the comment system, and more.  I’ve even posted my publishing credits, to date.

The host-change is also the reason for the delay between posts.  Sorry about that part.

We now return to your regularly scheduled post

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An acquaintance at work approached me recently about writing.  He had an idea for a short story or novel, he wasn’t sure which, and had written a couple of scenes but didn’t know how to really start.  He wasn’t sure what scene should be first, what he needed to know to continue, and he might have said more but he trailed off at that point.

I started to explain a few basic ideas, like story questions and conflict and opposition, but stopped there because his questions did not quite fit.  He was not just asking me how to tell a story.  He was asking me something more basic: how do I write?  How do I get the story inside me out?  How do I get myself to put words on paper?

I was telling him about craft, but more than that he needed to understand organization.

I told him some of the basics – such as keyboard time, deadlines, and silencing the inner editor – but I I had to walk a fine line.  I needed to teach him organization concepts without accidentally imposing my style on an impressionable mind that it might not suit.

Organization, like voice, is idiosyncratic.  What works for me might not work for you and vice versa.  But how do you find out what works for you?

The obvious step here is try things that others have done.  For example, a lot of writers like to summarize scenes on index cards.  In fact, that technique is popular enough that some software will offer virtual index cards for this purpose.

But you should also look at how you organize other elements of your life.  Every one of us, no matter how disorganized we might feel (or appear at times), has methods for completing tasks at work and in the home.  Find a way to make yours apply to writing.

For example, do you put sticky notes on the refrigerator to remind yourself of important tasks?  Find a place you can put sticky notes to remind yourself of important writing tasks, such as “draft chapter 5,” “revise chapter 4,” “interview PoV character,” or “write five endings.”

Does your phone alarm help you remember to make important calls or attend key meetings?  Why not use it to remind yourself to write for fifteen or thirty minutes?

However it is that you make it through life, you can find ways to adapt those tricks to your writing.

Here are a few of my own examples:

• Deadlines.  This one may seem obvious, but for me it is personal.  I’ve done tech editing gigs that required me to keep writers on their deadlines, or cut their work.  If the writers missed their deadlines by a day, I had to tell them that their articles would not appear in the journal.  Having made those calls, I don’t ever want to receive one.  So I set deadlines for my writing and keep them.
• One notebook.  I’ve run campaigns in roleplaying games that have lasted for years, with ongoing plots and subplots.  How did I keep track of everything?  Before and after every game session, I took notes and kept them in one file.  When it came time to write long-form fiction, I wanted a single notebook*, a place to plot what would happen in scenes I had not yet reached, to interview characters, to make world-building notes and so on.  Notes I took elsewhere had to end up in that notebook.
• Build-as-I-go.  When I was a young game master, I put a lot of time and effort into building my campaign worlds.  I was proud of their histories and details.  I then learned a shocking truth: players didn’t care.  Oh, they might take polite interest, even with some sincerity if it somehow affected their characters, but beyond that they wanted to get back to the game.  I took that lesson with me into my writing: readers only care about the parts of your world that affect the story they’re reading.  For this reason, I do very little world-building before I begin to draft, and sometimes I draft a scene or two first.  Until I know what story I’m telling, I don’t know what I need to know about where it takes place.

  This does mean that I sometimes have to revise for consistency, or that I occasionally have to stop drafting – or at least put a placeholder over a trouble spot while drafting – so that I can figure out how some aspect of the world works, but I take copious notes when I do so that my world stays true to itself.

I consider organization an evolving process.  I continue to play with new ideas and approaches in case I’m overlooking something that would suit me well.  For example, I’ve worked with databases most of my life, but organizing my writing through databases and software has felt awkward until recently.  For my thesis novel I have used Liquid Story Binder XE and found it very helpful.  Now Scrivener is available for Windows, and I’m seriously considering using it instead.  LSBXE is powerful, but not as smooth as I would like.

Organizing your writing is kind of like cleaning up a meal.  You can plan for it and clean as you go, or you can clean everything when the meal is over, but either way, you have to do it or you’re left with a big mess.

*  I switched from a file to a notebook because sheets from my file have had a tendency to vanish on me during games.

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Submissions update: I’m starting to develop a backlog of pieces that need to be submitted, but that is likely to stay true until I finish a big move next month.  I am looking forward to taking an afternoon and sending out ten or fifteen pieces all at once.  Still, since my last post I have submitted to Daily Science Fiction.

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