What's your writing process? What have you learned?

@JWZagst J.W. Zagst
Fri, 28 Jan 2022 13:45:50 +0000

@JWZagst wrote:

I usually dream up the basic narrative skeleton in my head before I actually start writing it down, and once I have a firm idea on what I want, I begin creating the outlines. For my current novel, The Ballad of Mallory Dane, which is reworked from a previous unfinished novel of the same name, I started by creating a 15 page synopsis, which then grew to 19 pages. Through that, I planned out 210 chapters, each split into 7 Tapas episodes, for a total episode count of 1,470. However, there are currently only 9 episodes live on the site (most recent one just went live today), and the exact count may change as I flesh out the individual chapters.

I use the narrative skeleton as a guide while I write, but generally wait to detail out the specifics of each chapter until I am actively creating it. For instance, the skeleton may say "go here, do this, go there, do that, fight this enemy, say some words, do the thing," but I'll wait to choose the exact descriptors, dialogue, emotional expressions, etc. until I am actively writing that chapter, following my gut to see what fits best in the moment.

To give you an example, here was how the first two episodes looked on the synopsis:

Battle between Mallory and Sadowa 18 months in the future, in August 2024. Roll back to February 2023, Mallory, Emmett, Sully, Selena, and Linnie are at Roth Deckard Hall’s 49th Annual Battle of the Bands, where they are competing as their Folk Metal band, The Heralds of Osvael, which is based on their D&D characters. After losing the competition to K-Pop girl band Malachite MatriX, the teens go home defeated but thankful for the opportunity.

And then as I wrote, I expanded that into almost 2000 words between the two episodes, as well as changing some details, such as the name of the competition. You can compare that to what is publicly available to see how the scenes evolved. XD.