Hello Internet,
I have written about this before, but I never finished it. With that in mind, I would like to once again go over the different pieces of my production cycle. This time, I will try to outline each stage of my production cycle in this single post and then, if it pleases me, use either finished products or stories currently in production to showcase the different stages in a more practical, tangible way.
When I was younger, I didn’t have much of a production cycle. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I had developed anything like one, and that was more a matter of me formally assigning words to the things that I was already doing. That is to say, I had been unintentionally following a specific production cycle for the better part of my adult life without ever meaning to.
Formalizing the process was a matter of easing production when I was stumped and also of attempting to impose order onto chaos, which is most of what my life is. I began organizing my stories using these production cycles as a tool for organization, breaking each stage of my writing into one of these six steps in production: concept, outline, rough drafts, revised drafts, editing, and posting.
For a long time, I had ideas that never, ever translated into fully produced stories. I would plan and make notes for years without writing a single word. While I do not know that creating a more formal production process has necessarily helped me enjoy writing more, it had helped me write a lot more and kept my writing from sitting and kept me from spinning my wheels so much. I have a much easier time sitting down, saying that I am going to write something, and beginning the writing process, even if sometimes it feels like I don’t.
Looking back, I think my production process became a thing because I had ADHD. I didn’t know it at the time, but executive functioning was something I struggled with. I never took notes, and if you were to look back at my old essays that I used to write (and blog posts), I never followed my production pipelines on those things, and they always ended up an incoherent mess. Establishing a formal production cycle helps by giving me a starting point, even if it does remove some of the spontaneity of writing that I enjoy so much.
Even then, the spontaneity can be in the process itself and not in the organization of the production. All of that said, these six steps of production have really helped keep me organized as I’ve continued writing over the years, and hopefully, they can help you, two.
My 6 Step Process to Writing:
1. Concept: Concept is the broadest part of my writing process. For me, concept is when the general planning for a story takes place. During this stage, I will begin pulling resources, building reference sheets, and defining characters. I build the world out as much as I need to, which can range from writing small outlines to writing whole chapters or separate stories when required. This is where the bulk of research might take place, too, and I have been known to write shorter, less defined outlines during this stage in preparation for stories.
Concept is about figuring out what the story I want to tell is. Often, I’ll begin with a scene or with a subject. Those, by themselves, are often not stories, unless they are (short stories and micro-fiction are different and often feel different to me). Concept is where I establish things like what tense I will be writing it from, what POV, who my main characters are, what is the overarching theme, and so on. A lot of things change from this stage to the rough draft stage, but this is the foundational work that will determine how well a story will work or how long it will take before I feel comfortable with what I am writing.
Since concept is so large and nebulous, I often don’t consider it finished until I feel comfortable or have a handle on what I am writing. Lately, this happens once I have a basic, simple pre-outline for my outline ready.
2. Outline: Everyone knows what an outline is, so I won’t go into detail describing them too much. For me, an outline is the place where the barebones of what I am writing begins to take shape. OUtlines are important for establishing pacing and giving the story structure. A good outline lets you know how your story will flow and will give it poetry. Without an outline, it can be difficult to make stories flow well, and it might also be difficult to keep going after you hit writer’s block.
Some writers do not do outlines. Stephen King semi-famously put down the idea of outlines, and that’s easy for him to do. He’s a multi-millionaire with multiple houses and a particular niche that he likes to stick to. For everyone else, outlines are a good way to keep yourself on track with your writing.
Personally, for me, outlines also help me remember where I am. When I would write essays for school without outlines, I would walk away and come back the next day and forget what I had already written. I knew what I wanted to say, but I had no idea what I had already said. So, coming back to an outline when I am writing stories is invaluable to me because it helps me remember where I am and what I need to written ext. It gives me a goal to work toward.
For some people, that takes the fun and creativity out. To those people, I remind you that you can just change something if it’s not fitting when you’re doing a rough draft. You always hold the power to change what a character does or how the story will go, and you can just make notes that you changed a thing. Typically, if you do an outline, your broad strokes will be the same, as an outline is doing a lot of the leg work in building your theme and location anyway. I’m always adding things or taking things away to make my stories better while I’m writing, and I notice with an outline, I spin my wheels less and write more.
(For the record, my outline for this was approx. four words. So, there you go.)
3. Rough Drafts: If the outline is the bare bones, then the rough draft is the meat. Where an outline gives the basic shape of the story, the rough draft is the bulk of what the story is. Now, a lot of people begin writing and feel like their writing is garbage, and though I write often, I agree. My writing is garbage, which is why a rough draft is called just that. Rough.
Rough drafts take the basic skeleton and gives it the muscles and sinews it needs to move and to live. Sometimes, when you’re lucky, some of what you write in your rough draft might even be passable or useable in your finished copy. Oftentimes, it isn’t.
A lot of the time, the rough draft tends to look to me like an approximation of what I want the finished copy to be. A lot of the time, I will look at it and see where I could have improved something, or I will write too much and know on instinct that I need to pare it down or recenter my efforts. Outlines help me to stay focused, but it isn’t until the revised drafts of my stories that I begin to think of them as the story I wanted to tell.
For me, rough drafts are the most fun but also the absolute worst part of writing. They have all of the raw, unbridled creativity of planning a story, but they are also the most miserable. None of what I wanted to write turns out the way I wanted it to as I am scrambling to figure out how to word an idea, and instead I spend my time fussing over small things which don’t sound right to me and worrying how I will get it from this bloody mess to something presentable.
All of that said, rough drafts are important first steps in that they are actual writing. Everything else is an idea, but this is the beginning of the final product. Like with wood working, you will need polish and refinement, but you have the beginnings of the story, even if it isn’t perfect.
Personally, I set aside research, and I set aside logic. Some of my rough drafts will have a single, same character whose name changes or cities that are spelled differently. For me, it isn’t worth the time to go back and doublecheck how I did a thing before. All that matters is writing during the rough draft. Any time spent doing anything else is time wasted.
4. Revised Drafts: Following the body analogy which I had started using last time, if we view the the rough draft as the meat, then revision is the clothes. For me, revision takes everything that I had previously created in the rough draft and refines it into what I wanted it to be. Sometimes, certain scenes will require added care. A single run through on revision doesn’t smooth out all of the wrinkles, but revision is what allows the story to be what I want it to be.
The key to revision is taking ideas and improving them. Outlines give me the basic shape, and rough drafts realize those ideas. Rough drafts give me words. Revision is the process by which I either add more or take away. I expand shallowly realized ideas or cut where I went too far. Sometimes, I completely rewrite scenes to be more in line with my style or with the themes of the story. Always, I am looking to create, and sometimes I might completely change scenes to make them more consistent with later characterization or with ideas I added that weren’t originally there in the previous draft.
For me, revision is where stories begin to take on the shape that I imagined them to be and is often where I feel the most comfortable.
5. Editing: Editing is the final stage. Revision was clothes, and editing is doing your hair, trimming your nails, brushing your teeth. Editing is the fine detail work to make sure that everything matches up. Here, I will become much stricter about making sure that I use the same words to describe a thing, that I make sure buildings, places, or people all have the same name, and that the specific details remain the same through the draft. I also make sure that small typos are fixed and stylistic choices are upheld.
Since editing requires such attention to detail, it is definitely my weakest point. I dislike reading my own content as a rule, as I spend most of my time looking at what needs to change rather than enjoying it. That said, I am particularly bad at making sure to line everything up. Pacing, structure, characterization are all skills that come naturally to me. The finer points of editing are where I am still working my hardest to grow, which is probably while I avoid it.
6. Posting: Now that we’ve finished building the body and dressing it, it’s time we take it out on a date, and as I type that, I realize how absolutely creepy it is. So, I apologize. Regardless, I post stories partly to get feedback, partly to put them out into the world. There are some who will say that you should just write to please yourself, and while I agree that writing comes from the heart and should primarily be an expression of yourself, I also think it is important to share it with the world.
Sharing stories with the world adds them to the canon. Everything we write and everything we create is built upon the knowledge of those who came before us, and everything that comes after us is shaped by what we are creating now. By putting content out into the world, I believe I am adding to that dialogue. This benefits me because it gives me not only accountability, but it also gives me purpose, and it is good for others because these stories will help them grow and change, either by showing them what to do or what not to do. Sometimes, these stories might be incomplete or not in their best version, and maybe someone will take them and refine them further, creating what I had intended or something even better.
It is all a dialogue, and through my writing I am speaking into the future from where I sit in the past.
7. The Lost Seventh Step, Publishing: I organize my the things I write into different types of projects. I write fan fiction, and I write stories that I intend to live online. I also write novels. As of right now, I have 5 major stories that I refer to as my Big 5 Novels. Those are Indigo, The Knights of Sheba, The Unnamed Saga novels, Yggdrasil, and Beyond the Stars. Each have a small piece of me inside of them, and each get a bit more love than the other projects which I do for fun.
These stories get queried. For those of you who don’t know, querying is the process by which authors attempt to get a book published. Typically, it is done by authors who already don’t have representation. You may query a publishing company, or you may query an agent, who will then help you find a publisher. It is often suggested to go for an agent first, as they have a better idea of what sort of deals you should be making and what sort of compensation you should get.
Right now, I am working on Indigo: Abraham and The Knights of Sheba, though I see The Unnamed Saga: The Four Thrones joining that list very soon.
Querying is a difficult and emotionally taxing effort. All of that said, I had some minimal good fortune when I very first started, good fortune which I have yet to be able to replicate since. That, however, is a story for another time.
Sincerely,
RWS
P.S.
Books
0. Main: the Giver by Lois Lowry
One Piece Vol. 86, Ch. 865: “Hey, Mother”—869 55% (7—11)
1. Sun: Boruto Vol. 4, Ch. 14: “Teamwork!!”-15 50% (3–4)
2. Mon: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Vol. 2, Ch.13: “It Was You”-16 56% (6–9)
3. Tue: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 3: Stardust Crusaders Vol. 1, Ch. 12: “Silver Chariot part 2’”-13 77% (11–13)
4. Wed: My Hero Academia Vol. 9, No. 76: “My Hero”-71 44% 5(–9)
5. Thu: One-Punch Man Vol. 9, Punch 46.1: “Hero Hunting”-46.1 91% (11–11)
6. Fri: My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Vol. 4, Ep. 25: “No Better Daddy”-26 50% (7–8)
7. Sat: (Fan Fiction) Final Fantasy: Fated bytinygaia Ch. 80% (41—50)
8. Squirrel: One Piece Vol. 17 Ch. 148—155
Reading Order:
-Fiction: Pyramids by Terry Pratchett 100%
-Library: Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender by Stef M. Shuster 100% (–)
-YA: The Giver by Lois Lowry 32% (59–179)
-DnD5e: Player’s Handbook by Wizards of the Coast 0% (0–?)
-Non-Fiction: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat 0% (0–?)
View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman 26% (130–502)
—Reread—
Games
0. Main: .hack//MUTATION
1. Sun1: Xenogears 9% (6/66hrs)
Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster 29% (15/52hrs)
2. Mon: Omega Quintet 0% (0/47hrs)
3. Tue: DnD5e
4. Wed: Dragon Age: Origins Kallian Tabris 14% (10/74hrs)
5. Thu: Movie
6. Fri: God of War ?% (??/33hrs)/One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 57% (20/35hrs)
7. Sat: .hack//MUTATION 83% (36/50hrs(19/23hrs))
Shadow Hearts: Covenant
Shows
0. Main: Batman: The Animated Series
1. Critical Role: Campaign 2: “Rebirth” 98% (139—141)
2. Anime: Dragon Ball The General Blue Saga 92% 57—57 (12—12)
3. Owned: Digimon: Adventure Myotismon Arc 0% 21–28 (1–8)
4. Netflix: Moving Pictures Season 3 17% (2—6)
Seven Deadly Sins Season 1 8% (3–24)
5. Disney+: Star Wars: Visions 56% (6–9)
6. HBO: Batman 52% (17–31)
7. Critical Role Campaign 2 15—17 82%
Moon Knight 17% (2–6)
Movies: Firefly 7% (2—14)
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