Wednesday 19^th August 2020

One of the things I’m really, really interested in is the technical aspects of writing. This goes beyond simple craft. Whilst I love to hear about how writers approach character, what I really love is to know how they organise themselves. What writing tools do they use? How do they organise their manuscripts in software like Scrivener? How do they track structural changes they need to make?

I used to be a pantser. I knew the first act, important milestone scenes and the last chapter, but nothing more. I’d weave my way towards those milestones, finding my way there whilst allowing myself to be guided by the story.

About 7 years ago I went on a major productivity kick. This was a result of leggeddon and needing to be organised. As part of that I decided to apply what I’d learnt to my writing and try to architect a novel. That novel was Black As Knight,

And whilst it’s taken a lot of rewrites to get it to this stage, I consider that initial experiment a success because it got me an agent (I made a good book, it just needed work to make it great).

As a result, I’m a convert to being a planner. And the more I look at writers and look at their writing processes, I become more and more convinced that being a planner is the way to go.

I read a blog post by GRRM today and how he literally has to take himself to a cabin in the woods to write. It has seemed obvious to me for some time that the problems he has with Winds of Winter causing the delays is because he is largely a pantser. And you know what: fair enough, that’s how he works and has lead to that series being supper-successful, but at the same time it shows me that it’s not the way to go.

I watch interviews with successful writers who are planners. They turn out book after book on time, each as good as the last. And yes, there are terrible writers who are planners just as there are terrible writers who are pantsers, but my point is that they’re efficient.

Disruptions happen. For a long time, like GRRM I tried to remove anything that would take my head out the novel. But as my processes have evolved and improved, I find myself in a situation where I’m in the middle of a stressful time of my life, and yet I’m able to work. Whilst I’m under no illusion that something could come along that might actually stop me, I feel that having some structure around how I work minimises the chance of that.

If I’m honest, I feel I’ve been far from optimum in terms of organisation these past few months, but – and I feel this is important – what I do have is solid enough that I can do it badly and still make progress. If I’ve learnt anything about productivity tools and techniques it’s that you shouldn’t expect yourself to be brilliant at following your own rules all the time. There come moments when you need to regroup and refocus. A good system won’t only make you super-organised when you follow it religiously, but it’ll tide you over when you’re muddling through.

I accept, like anything to do with writing, this may not be universal. For some, planning just wouldn’t work and they’ve developed their own methods for writing that work for them.

I’m still refining my processes, which is why I’m so intrigued to get into the nitty-gritty of how people write. Many writers talk about WHAT they do, I just wish more talked about HOW they did it.