Batblog

A Complicated Process

I'm sure every writer has their own unique process for their writing. Maybe some people simply start from a basic concept and let the plot and characters all come organically as they write. Others might plan their stories out meticulously before they even think of actually starting to write it, or perhaps they only plan things out in the most bare-bones fashion. Perhaps the process even changes slightly from story to story, depending on what feels most natural at the time.

Now, me personally? I'm definitely a planner. When I talk about my "plans" for my stories, I don't mean in my head. I have documents crammed full of meticulous notes on the plot, locations, and characters; file folders full of reference pictures and maps; hand-written timelines and graphs; anything I need to keep things in order in my head.

Even The Krimson Traitor has a 2,300-word document full of notes dedicated to it, a file folder with over twenty reference images (mostly pictures of the animals), a hand-written timeline, and a hand-written family tree to help me keep the relationships between all the Krimson characters in order. All for a fanfiction. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Then there's Mythryn, the original novel I'm planning next. I have a nearly 3,000-word document of notes, a folder with twenty reference images, and a full-colour hand-drawn map of the landmass it takes place in. Starwake (which is a prequel to Mythryn) was probably the closest I'll ever come to the free-balling "think of a concept and just write" process for story-writing, but even that was the beneficiary of all the prep-work I've done for Mythryn; the map and my notes on the Crescent Isle and its culture were all invaluable resources for writing that short story, even if the plot (if you could call it a "plot") all flowed organically from a base of "Ryn on a boat, about to leave home for Brass Valley."

I do all of this because I need to in order to keep things organized. If I didn't write all the character and place names down, I might forget them. If I don't codify the plot and the way the world works, I might contradict myself and then have to waste time rewriting whole swaths of my story to fix the errors. If I didn't have a map to refer to, the world would likely wind up feeling vague and unreal. It may sound like work to plan everything out ahead of time like that, but for me, it's more likely to save time and work in the long run.

I might publish my notes as a book collection once I've completed some larger projects. They could provide some interesting insights for someone.