Behind the Scenes: Writing Process

Hi all, today I wanted to talk about my writing process so you have a better idea what I’m up to all the time.

Each book starts with a first draft. I’m a Discovery Writer, which means I don’t do a lot of planning when I write my first drafts. Discovery Writers are also sometimes called ‘Pantsers’ because we write by the seat of our pants (a play on the saying ‘fly by the seat of our pants’). Steven King is probably the most well-known author who writes in this way.

This doesn’t mean I have no plan with this story! With each novel I start with a general direction I know I want to push Cass and Cass’s own goals provide some structure as well. I have a general idea of what the ‘end’ looks like and several key plot points for the series that we are working towards. But we are finding out the details together.

This means that my first drafts are where I figure out in detail the problems Cass runs into and the direction her power set grows. But, there are usually problems, especially with pacing, motivation, or logistics in these first drafts, but I’ll get into that more in a minute.

During this first draft phase, I write around 10,000 words a week. At top form, when I have a particularly clear image of the scene I’m working on, I can do 1,000 words in an hour. This is primarily accomplished through writing Sprints.

Sprints are a writing practice where one sets a timer (usually 15 or 20 minutes) and then writes as much as they can in that window. The goal is not to stop writing for anything. That means no looking things up, no stopping to agonize over names, no staring at the page wondering what’s next. For me, stepping into this mindset pushes aside doubts that might otherwise slow me down. Sometimes this produces subquality work. Sometimes I discard what I wrote entirely after I finish the sprint, as I find the direction I ran in isn’t going to work. But, either is better than a blank page. Subquality writing can be edited into something usable. A wrong direction forces me to better define what exactly I’m trying to achieve with a scene.

Once I have the first draft complete, I toss my work at a writing friend of mine and I don’t look at the draft for two weeks. This break is important to get some distance from the writing. It’s hard to see what needs to be changed if you are in the same head space as when you wrote it. Ideally, I’d like to spend more like a month away, but I haven’t had the time for that under the schedule I’ve been working under up to this point. I hope I can give book 5 that kind of decompression with the new posting schedule.

When my break is complete, I start the Developmental Editing process. This starts by rereading the draft and the notes from my friend and making my own notes as I go. I don’t change the text at all in this first pass. Then, with my notes, I make an outline of the book and then make structural changes to that outline.

Thankfully, because of the more free form nature of adventure stories, I’ve never had to move too much around, though character motivation and foreshadowing are common things I need to change.

As an example, in the first draft of Book 2, Cass initially did not want to go with Alyx into the Catacombs while Alyx just assumed Cass would. There were legitimate character reasons these two would act this way (Cass hesitant to jump into more danger, Alyx assuming Cass as a combatant would jump at a chance to grow stronger) but it made for a very passive narrative with Cass being dragged through the plot against her will in an unsatisfying manner. Swapping Cass and Alyx’s opinions here (Cass wanting to help her friends, Alyx not wanting to increase her perceived debt to Cass) turned into better character building and gave Cass a much more active role in the story.

For another example, in the first draft of book 3, the high priestess isn’t mentioned until the ritual starts. When I was doing my editing, I decided it made more sense for her to have been involved earlier.

I also often do balance adjustments during this phase of editing, altering the listed levels of enemies to better match their displayed power. Usually, this means lower the level of enemies a little bit. The paladin captain, for example, was originally level 45 in the first draft, but I decided that was too high for where he was socially and for Alyx to beat the way she does, even with all the debuffs he’s under at that point.

Occasionally, characters get renamed in this phase also, usually to make them fit with existing names better, but also sometimes because the original name was stupid. Ahryn, for example, was Ahray in the first draft, which I still like written but unfortunately sounds entirely too much like the word ‘array’ out loud that I couldn’t justify keeping it.

I have allocated about a month to this process for the past books and when I don’t need to change the structure too much, this is a tight but doable timeline. Book 4 has forced me to reevaluate how long I need to give this process.

But, if all has gone well, my Developmental Edits end as my between book hiatus ends and we enter phase three together: Line Edits.

Line Edits involve checking grammar, spelling, and general flow. This is where I try to catch typos and remove any remaining awkward or unclear phrasing.

Historically, I have tried to be as far ahead of Patreon on these edits as Patreon is ahead of Royal Road. Recently, I have fallen behind and am often doing those edits the day of… This is another reason for the upcoming slower schedule; I am hoping to get (and stay) ahead again.

And that’s it! That’s how it goes from a glimmer of an idea to 120k+ word books. It sounds so straightforward when I write it out like that, doesn’t it?

In summary, while you were reading book 3, I was writing book 4. And while you begin book 4, I will be starting work on book 5.

That’s it for this week’s behind-the-scenes. I’d love to answer any questions you might have about my process, so feel free to drop them in the comments below, or if you have any other requests for behind-the-scenes content, please leave your suggestions there too.

In the meantime, it’s back to the editing mines for me!