My Writing Process

I’ve gotten some questions about my writing process recently, so I’ve decided to lay it out the best I can in a blog post. Before I get into it, I’d like you to keep in mind that every author has a different process. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, and what works for my brain may not work for yours. However, if learning about my process helps you lay your groundwork, I’m glad to have shared!

Another thing to keep in mind is that your writing process will change over time. Any author that is consistently writing and growing will adjust their process around the new tools they’ve learned to use. Even just a year from now, this blog post will probably be outdated as I grow and change! That’s okay. Art should be fluid. You need to keep yourself open to new forms of expression, not lock yourself in a box.

With those thoughts in mind, let’s jump into it, shall we?

I break my writing process down into four distinct phases: conceptualizing, outlining, writing and publishing.


Phase 1: Conceptualizing
Before you begin to tell a story, you have to have a story to tell. I like to start with a core idea, concept, or theme, and build my story around that. An easy one I’ll rely on sometimes is a character concept split into two parts- who a character is at the start, and who they are at the end. An interesting setting can also be fun to build a story around, or a metaphor you’d like to communicate to your audience. When all else fails, though, I personally build off of an idea of what I want for the final scene.

Once you have a core idea to build off of, it’s time to brainstorm! Ask yourself questions and elaborate on your idea until a plot starts to take shape. I’d encourage you to start thinking about how you want your plot to be structured at this phase, and start “pinning” ideas to different plot pieces. Will it be a traditional pyramid, with a rising action, climax, and falling action? Or maybe it’ll be more like a river, with multiple bumps in the road flowing toward the conclusion? It’s up to you!

Here are some good questions to ask yourself while building an idea:

- Who is the character my story is told through?
- What does each character want? Why do they want it?
- How does the setting make it easier for the characters to achieve their goals? How does it make it more difficult?
- Who do I want my audience to root for, or do I want them rooting for a character at all?
- What’s at risk? What are the stakes if the main character fails?

For more questions to ask yourself and resources on building a plot idea, I strongly suggest checking out Nathan Bransford’s writing advice blog. Nathan Bransford is both an author and a former literary agent, so he’s seen writing from both the author and the publisher’s side! You can find his blog here: Nathan Bransford

A great way to give your conceptualization phase a little more fuel is to start collecting inspiration. I cannot recommend the Story Engine Deck enough. Combined with the Deck of Worlds and the Lore Master’s Deck, you can create as vague or as detailed a writing prompt as you want to get started. At the moment, the tool is geared mostly toward fantasy authors and dungeon masters, but there are several expansion packs available to adapt the deck to your genre and needs. Take a look a their writer’s block buster here: The Story Engine Deck

Another good source of inspiration is your local library. Pick a random number between 1 and 300, then find that page in one or more thesauruses and write down the words that stand out to you. Browse book titles and cover art. Flip through old magazines. Your library may even have a collection of old local newspapers, so you can browse through past events that were significant to someone, but too small for national news. Sit down at a desk with a notebook and write down snippets of overheard conversation and observations about the world around you. Take a look at community bulletin boards. Talk to the folks at the front desk about their favorite literature. The library is an endless source of mental stimulation!

Mental stimulation really is the key. Make a playlist, go for a jog, paint something, do whatever inspires you! Keep yourself enriched, and the inspiration will come.


Phase 2: Outlining
This phase is where things start getting a little less abstract. Now that you have an idea for a story, it’s time to start hammering at the details.

I normally start my outline by laying out the “story beats.” When I call something a “beat,” I’m referring to a specific moment or scene where something in the plot changes. These moments mark significant transitions from one plot point to the next, like destinations on a map. Some examples would be major character actions (“Character falls down a mountain.”), shifts in the character’s goal or outlook (“Character learns about an amulet that could save their sick mother.”), or shifts in the setting/story (“Character arrives at [place].” “Citadel collapses.”).

Once I have my basic beats down, I start to expand around them. This is where the plot’s structure is going to come to light a bit more. For example, if one of the first beats is, “Character learns about an amulet that could save their sick mother,” I would want to put somewhere before that, “Introduce Character; Establish sick mother.” This is also where I start asking myself motivation and continuity questions a lot. What is the mother sick with? Where does the character learn about the amulet, and from whom? Why and how does the character make contact with this person? What makes them believe the story is credible?

You can expect an outline to go through several revisions as you expand on it, with each new version becoming more specific. Not every moment in the outline necessarily needs the same level of specificity, though! It depends on where you think you’ll need the most self-guidance.

I feel like I’m pretty strong when it comes to creating an atmosphere and introducing a setting. When my story comes to a new location, I may just jot down, “Character arrives at [place],” and leave it at that. However, I’m still rough around the edges when it comes to rapid action sequences. When I reach those points in my outline, I’ll be more specific, adding bullet points along the lines of, “Building starts to shake; Character runs toward door; ceiling above door collapses, large debris pile; Character turns around and spots window adjacent to door; Character runs to window (trips?),” etc, etc.

However specific you decide to get with your outline, it’s important to remember that you’re not creating a strict frame. It’s a guide, and it can be as flexible as you want it to be. You might move around, cut out, or add in events mid-writing as you actualize certain scenes. That’s alright!

To think of it another way: Your outline is drawn in chalk, not paint. It’s okay to redraw the lines, because it was meant to be washed off anyway.

Optional Phase: Preparation
I know, I know- I said there were four phases, and now that I have my outline, what more could I possibly need to do? Well, it depends.

Sometimes, I need to supplement my outline with additional references. For example, before writing A Typical Lakeside Breakfast, I had to get a lot of references of geese. Have you ever watched videos of a geese attacking someone for a whole hour? Or listened to a goose honk at half speed to decide how to portray it in writing? I have. I also sketched a layout of the parking lot and park the story takes place in, and jotted down some background for my narrator to solidify his voice. Before getting into it, I even put together a playlist to establish the vibe!

To provide another example, for The Adventures of Balrog the Cat, Volume 2, I collected clips and screenshots of Alexander Mayhue’s cats, Balrog and Momo, from across his old streams. I also got several pictures and videos of my guinea pigs, and some pictures of stressed dandelions. To help conceptualize Dan D. Lyon, I sketched out a creepy lion on my desk, and reread/jotted down some of my favorite descriptions of unsettling movement from the works of H.P. Lovecraft for that eerie vibe. For the warehouse, I sketched out the layout and gathered screenshots of both real-world warehouses and warehouses from media. I also started a Lore Tracking page, to help me keep track of important worldbuilding details.

For the most part, the preparation phase is there for you to set yourself up for success. Gather your inspiration and references, make a playlist that gets you in the zone, and begin to collect your vision. This is also a good moment to take a break, if you’ve been working on your outline for a while. Giving yourself some space from your work helps keep your mind flexible and primed with new ideas! So if you get to the end of your outline, you have all your tools, and you’re still feeling daunted? Maybe go grab some lunch, or sleep on it.

Phase 3: Writing
Finally, getting into the meat and potatoes! With my resources at my fingertips and a caffeinated beverage in hand, it’s time to write. Personally, I like to go bullet point by bullet point of my outline. I’ve known other skilled authors who jump around their outlines to write different scenes in an order that works better for them, but I find moving through a story in order of events helps me avoid continuity errors and stay on-track. It also helps with my pacing!

That doesn’t mean I don’t skip over some things in the first draft, though. My first draft will contain lines like, [Character description here] or, [And then the situation escalates to fight]. Sometimes, especially in the very first draft, a detail will just snag and refuse to come to me, and I’ll need to move past it to keep my momentum. It can always be worked out in a later draft, after all. But to be vulnerable for a moment, when you’re writing your first draft, there’s something I want you to keep in mind:

THE FIRST DRAFT ALWAYS SUCKS.

It always sucks. It’s the roughest point your story will ever be at, and it’s going to feel choppy and gritty, obviously not your best work. That’s okay. Dough that’s only folded over once makes for a terrible biscuit. A coat with only one layer isn’t a coat at all. You’ve primed your canvas. Now you need to trust the process.

Going from outline to first draft is, in my opinion, the hardest part of writing emotionally. You will doubt yourself. You’ll feel like a terrible writer. When those moments come, take a deep breath, and keep going. As many authors, artists, and other creatives will tell you… Make it exist first. Make it good later.


The second draft will go smoother than the first draft, because now you’re not writing from scratch. Now you’re building off a foundation already there. There’s lots of ways to go about a new draft, but personally, I like opening a new document and just re-writing from the beginning. This lets me go over each word I’ve chosen and each scene I’ve developed to get a feel for how the story flows and how each moment lands. At this point, the story is still very flexible, and I may move around, cut out, or add scenes as I self-critique.

When I reach the third draft, I add one more element to my strategy. As I write, I’ll start to read my story out loud. I am, at my very core, an oral storyteller. I love to write, but oral storytelling and reading out loud will always be my first love. I write the same way I would tell the story, and I’ve found reading out loud helps me iron out the flow of scenes. I may find certain words feel out of place, a sentence reads weird, or a moment doesn’t impact as hard as I want it to. Then I can rewrite those portions until it feels natural.

Somewhere between the second, third, and fourth draft, I make a point to step away again. I can get too familiar with a story if I work on it nonstop. My brain will need a break to reset and get some fresh ideas. Sometimes I’ll come back and go, “Wow, this section doesn’t actually make sense.” Or I’ll come back and say, “Wait, I have the best idea for how to make this part better!” It comes back to what I mentioned with outlining- flexibility. You need to keep your mind flexible.

There’s no set number of drafts I’ll need for a story. For short stories, I normally aim for somewhere between three and five. It depends on how challenged I’ve been by a story, how tired my brain is, what tools I’ve added to my skillset while writing, and so on. The important thing to keep in mind when trying to decide if you need another draft or not is that a story is never truly “complete.”

Written works have no concrete finish line. There will always be areas you could improve, different word choices you could try, and different directions you could have taken things. The question to ask yourself is not, “Is this story finished?” The question is you should as is, “Have I told the story I want to tell, to the best of my ability right now?”

If the answer is yes, you’re done. It’s time to let it breathe. If the answer is no… time for another draft. Or, alternatively, time to table the story until later. I have my own collection of ideas I’ve started to write, but found I didn’t have the skill or frame of reference to tell them the way I wanted to yet. There are themes, ideas, and concepts that I just can’t communicate the way I want to, and that’s okay. I’ll get there, in time. You’ll get there, too.

Once you’ve decided you’re there? It’s time to format and publish.


Phase 4: Publishing
I include my final proofread in the publishing phase, because at that point, all I’m looking for are grammatical errors, misplaced punctuation, and typos. The problem I face very often is I’ve gotten so familiar with the narrative that my brain just fills in some gaps automatically, so I struggle to spot mistakes. If you can, it’s worth it to get your work professionally edited. A professional editor will be able to not only check for mistakes, but give you feedback on your story as a whole. Finding an editor that’s credible and you can communicate well with can be tough, though. Make sure to look at a potential editor’s portfolio of works they contributed to and talk with them a bit to see if your communication styles and vision match before committing to hiring one.

Once I feel I have the text itself ironed out, it’s time for formatting. How you format your writing depends on how you want to publish it.
If you’re submitting your writing to a publication, like a contest, magazine, or publishing company, make sure to check their submission guidelines. They’ll often have very specific guidelines about how to format your manuscript before you send it to them. If they don’t, though, you’ll want to go with a traditional manuscript format. I recommend checking out this resource from Reedsy on the topic: Reedsy: Book Manuscript Format

If you’re going to be self-publishing, you can technically format however you want. However, there’s a few things you’ll want to keep in mind. Writing meant to be read online benefits from distinct line breaks between paragraphs. I personally like to publish my narrative writing with indented paragraphs as well, and large margins on both sides of the page. Blog posts such as this one, though, I don’t indent my paragraphs to be more in line with a typical online magazine style, and the margins are decided for me by JournoPortfolio and your browser scale. I’d also advise you to pick a dyslexia-friendly font, with clean and distinct letters. I personally go with either Sitka Text or the classic Times New Roman. (Sadly, on JournoPortfolio, I don't get to choose at the moment.)

Something big I want to emphasize for self-publishing, as well: License your work. Depending on where you are, you may have some basic intellectual property rights for just creating something, but a clear license can help protect those rights and define them before you work plagiarized. I personally license most of my work under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. This license allows others to reuse, adapt, and build on my work however they want, including for commercial purposes. However, I must be clearly credited as the original author. This is only one of many licenses Creative Commons has available. You pick one to fit your needs at the following page: Creative Commons: License Chooser

To apply a license to your work, you will need at minimum an author, a year of creation, and a… title.

Shoot. A title!

It’s at this point that I will often realize I have not given my work more than a working title. So don’t forget that step! The first draft is the hardest part of writing emotionally, but for me? Coming up with a title is the hardest part practically.


I hope this explanation of my writing process was helpful, or at least interesting! I’m planning on making more posts in the future about the craft, so if you haven’t already, visit the home page to subscribe to email notifications, and maybe even join my Discord for more resources!