Are you an aspiring writer? Or perhaps you’re already writing, and want to expand your skill set? I’m not an expert, by any means, but I wanted to shed light on my writing process since I’ve published 3 books at this point. I know some things. Each month for the foreseeable future, I will focus on a different component of fantasy drafting, editing & publishing.
Of course, you can use these blog posts if you write in other genres, but my focus is on fantasy (YA or adult).
This month, I want to start with pre-writing. All the planning and plotting. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantster, I don’t believe that you can write a book until you do a little (or in my case, a lot of) planning. Some of these may not work for you and your project, and that’s okay. For many authors, inspiration and clarity comes while you’re drafting. When I’m writing, new things take shape all the time. My outlines change. New plot points appear. New characters weasel their way in. It’s totally fine, and expected, if your plans change, but I believe authors need to have a spine to their story first.
Concept & character. I start with a mixture of these two elements, and answer a few basic questions:
Who is my main character?
Who is my antagonist?
What is this story about in a 1-2 sentence tagline?
For example, with “The Butcher and the Bard,” I started first with Marai. I knew I wanted
to write a story about a female mercenary with magical powers. I added Ruenen in there
as a love interest (because I won’t ever write stories without romance). I knew I wanted
him to be a bard who hires Marai, but I hadn’t yet thought of why. Then, I created Rayghast, the cruel king, but again, I didn’t know why he was the villain yet. For the concept, I knew I wanted to write a travelog, reminiscent of “Lord of the Rings,” so my original tagline was “A bard hires a female mercenary to get him safely off the continent, and away from the cruel king hunting him.” That was the story I wanted to write, but I didn’t yet know the why or how of anything.
Character biographies. After I create my protagonists & antagonist, as well as my overall concept, I focus on fleshing out my characters. I’m an author who believes that story & plot come from who the characters are. Their actions are determined by their backgrounds and circumstances, but it may be the opposite for you. You may first need to focus on the story. I create a “character biographies” doc, where I list every character I mention. I write down their entire backstory and personality. This is a living doc, in that it changes as I write and discover new traits, or add new characters. Here are the questions I answer:
What is their Internal Flaw?
External Flaw?
What is causing that flaw?
What is their Want/Objective at top of story?
What is their Main Want/Objective throughout the entire story?
What is their Main Obstacle?
What is their Fear?
What is the character’s Emotional Journey?
What is their Past?
What is their Appearance? (I go detailed here)
You don’t need to answer all of these questions, but I find they add more layers to my
characters and make them more complex. The more I know about them, the better I can
write them.
The World. I do a separate doc for world-building, and this can be extensive. I tend to discover more about the world as I write, but when drafting “Butcher,” I knew I wanted to base one half of the story in the mountains in winter, and the second half on a tropical beach/ocean. I had to create a world that made sense for such different geographical locations & climates. Here are the first round of questions I answer:
Is this a country, island, or continent?
What is the physical climate?
What is the geography/topography?
Who lives there? Types of people or creatures?
What is the political climate/who are the leaders/what is the hierarchy?
What are the religions/beliefs?
What is socially accepted/outlawed/frowned upon?
What is the magic system (if any)? What are the rules? Are their ramifications for this magic system? Cause-effects?
What is the main problem with this world?
What is this world’s history or creation story?
When does my story take place? Time period?
Are any places/time periods modeled after real places/time periods?
From there, I detail out every single country or land in this world, especially the main
ones I know I’ll be “visiting” in my books. I started with Grelta, Nevandia, and Tacorn in “Butcher,” and that’s how I learned about the conflict between Nevandia & Tacorn, and where Rayghast’s character really fleshed out, along with Ruenen’s backstory. Any time I mention a place (no matter how insignificant) I add it to the doc and write a description of that place so I keep track. You’d be surprised by how many additional places you end up mentioning as you’re drafting that you originally didn’t intend to talk about. While you won’t mention every detail in your story, you should know everything about your world, regardless.
Outlining. Once I’ve done the basics on character & world-building, I dig deeper into my specific outlining. I like to use Brandon Sanderon’s “Promise, Progress, and Payoff” approach. At the beginning of the story, you make a promise to the reader about what they should expect. The progress is the middle, the how the characters achieve the promise. And the payoff is your finale, and how everything comes together to complete the promise. Here are the questions I answer in this outline:
What is the tone promise? For example: the tone for “Butcher” is dark, gritty, intense, dramatic, with slight bits of humor
What is the umbrella/overarching plot promise? For example: “Butcher” is a Tale of Power/Overcoming the Monster tale. This story archetype can help you plan around the expectations of this type of story.
Core plot promise? What change will happen to the main characters?
What is the progress in the middle? What are my B & C plots?
What is the payoff at the end? Who characters are in Act 1 + what they’ve learned in Act 2 = who they will become in Act 3
Beat Sheet. You can use different types of beat sheets/story structures to help guide your outlines. Beat sheets can be especially helpful with pacing and planning, knowing what events should happen when, especially if you’re writing your first book. While I do use these as a guide, I tend to find the above outline of “P,P,P” more helpful.
3 Act Structure
Save the Cat Structure (read the book on this–super helpful)
You can find templates of these online for free.
Detailed Chapter-By-Chapter Outline. This may not be a step for many people, but I actually find it more helpful than a beat sheet. It’s where I pull all my other outlines together into one cohesive place. I get very detailed here, and I plan chapter-by-chapter what I’d like to happen. It also helps me see the scope of my writing, such as how many chapters I will need to accomplish the “Promise, Progress, and Payoff.” It’s also where I can discover if something’s missing, or if there’s too much excess, and not enough action/progress. Although, to be honest, that becomes much clearer when I’m writing and take a peek at that dreaded word count.
There you have it! No lie, this is a lot of work, but the more complex your story is, the more planning you need to do. It can be very difficult to keep track of everything (people, places, terms, etc.), and that’s why I have so many stages in my outlining process. The Dark Magic Series covers several books. The world is expansive, I have dozens of characters, AND I made my life harder by adding in a prophecy (which is a whole separate thing I have a doc for). Some authors have the uncanny ability to do little planning and still come out with an amazingly complex story. They are impressive, but I am not that author. I’m currently writing my 4th book, and let me tell you, I got lost half-way through Draft 1. I forgot the Promise. I forgot my character’s flaws & wants. I had to go back to my outlines and remember those things, and that made me incredibly grateful that I’d done all that work and could reset. Now as I’m working on Draft 2, I feel much more confident. The extra work is worth it for me!
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