When my grandmother gave me that typewriter in the days of yore, I never thought of writing as a process. In fact, I never considered writing as an element in a process called "authoring." Who would, until you've done it? I was always amazed by the authors who wrote complex stories-journeys to the ends of the earth, with hundreds of characters and locations and subplots, and still manage to see clear to a cogent, comprehensive work. How did all that genius spill out of quills into the world's libraries and collective imaginations? The answer I only discovered now, after authoring 2 epic works and fathering a 3rd (with plenty left in my pipelines). The doing is the learning. It's the PROCESS.

I also learned that every author develops their own process. These processes are all akin, but cleave to temperaments, craft proficiency, schedules and styles. Some are free form and flimsy. Others are nattered and painterly. All depend on one thing-dedication to writing daily. My process begins with several weeks (sometimes months) thinking about a subject. THE BOOKS SAY write it down or you'll forget it. Carry a notepad around. That doesn't work for me. If a subject is forgotten, it was forgettable. If it comes back a few times, its worthy of consideration. There are many things the BOOKS SAY that I disregard, but I'm surprised that many writers fail in the novelizations because they don't know what a novel is. I'll leave that to a later update.
Once the subject is decided upon, I structure the overall contour of the work (happy, sad, flamboyant . . . protagonist does this, a character does that . . . there's a scene in such a place, a dark corner exploding with fire, a flood, a train chase . . . and so on). Nothing on paper! I mull this over driving to work, in bed at night, in the shower, and daydreaming (hopefully not while driving).
Once the contour is formed, I nail the ending. All stories need a beginning, middle and end. I start with the end. Not the details of how the story is resolved. No one, not even I know that. That's up to my characters. I mean, the last scene . . . the one that leaves the last impression on the reader. That complete, I nail the opening. This is trickier, because the opening must capture the reader's interest and suck them in, committing them to continue the work. It must also serve the work; that is, it shouldn't prostitute the work for the sake of a catchy opening sentence or paragraph. (It was a dark and stormy night!). None of that. Once that's settled, I start the BLUEPRINT.

I don't use outlines. Outlines are death to a novel. They tend to work out details long before they should be details. They tend to pigeonhole characters into behaviors they wouldn't take if they had their own way. Instead I use a Blueprint. I start with little love notes to myself (confidence builders, reasons for the work and what I want HERE - not the theme. Themes are grafted onto novels after the fact. Never let a novelist tell you he had a specific theme in mind at the start. Remember, Novelists are professional liars). I follow my love notes with THE PITCH. This is three or four paragraphs dumping the contour, major plot items, character development suggestions and high points into a reference form. It's fun to compare this PITCH, after the fact, to the final work. They are always light years apart, but I think of it as the meristem-the bud can only blossom if the bud exists.

Next, I high-level the first four or five chapters, followed by a paragraph or two of directions for the next stages of the work. The blueprint grows with the writing and changes. I like to use strikethroughs for things I change, to both track my original thinking and watch it evolve. I don't know why I do this, but I do. To me it's not a working blueprint unless I can look backwards and forwards.

Then the first draft happens. And it happens. I read my blueprint for the chapter. I bone it up a bit and then think about it. I test it for logic and flow and then write. I try to write the chapter straight through, not worrying about anything but telling the story and seeding the initial imagery. This is the best time for writing. I write in either one of two places (I'm specific about this), and once I'm writing, I'M IN THE ZONE. Some day I expect to come out of the zone and find that we've had a nuclear war and I've missed it. If I finish a chapter and have forward motion, I will seed the next chapter with bulldonky, but never exceeding 4,000 words per sitting. My creative energy flags after 4,000 words. But laying down parts of the next chapter prevents the dreaded writer's block. Sometimes I stop short of a full chapter (especially when it's split in subchapters), to reset the creative energy. ALWAYS I try to defy the blueprint. For example (and this one's current), I just wrote a scene which the blueprint calls for a moonlight dialog session inside a bedroom on a clear night. Instead I wrote (the same material) outside on a balcony in a fog. I didn't know I was going to do that, but the characters dictated it; and the dialog session was curtailed adding more action. I never know what direction the session will take before I write. That's a good reason to have a fluid blueprint instead of a rigid outline. I finish a session with a computerized spell check and an out loud read (or 2). This catches errors, omissions, and sloop, but it is not a revision. It's just an effort to have the best material possible to scorch and burn in the revision. I sometimes will re-read and make changes after a major sub division, mostly to help guide my continuity and make mental notes of possible hot spots (places that might be too much, or indeed too little).

I do this for 3 or 4 months until I have a novel draft. The draft MUST impress me (and only me). I loose little sleep over the condition of the draft in detail. The only thing I require is that it be hefty enough to inflict cuts and be a valid expression of art. It should be nowhere near publishable, although some false birdie will sit on my shoulder and say it's good. It then gets put in the can and forgotten for 7 to 10 weeks (longer if need be). It's not like bread. It doesn't rise and double in the dark, but the time is needed to distance myself from the material and cleanse my palette of my deepest creative muse.

When I crack the work open for revision, I first read it OUTLOUD (reading aloud is essential for pace, sound and sense), and make notes. These are structural notes. I make a list of problem scenes and cuttable materials. I'm always surprised at how the draft is less pleasing to me after these 7-10 weeks. But I wear a different set of eyes now, and the toolbox that's out is not the artist's, but the artisan's. The thousands of tricks, twists, touches and rules that I hone as my craft now come into play. All those things like cutting all adverbs, what motivates character A to do that? The word smile is used 25 times in the spans of 5 pages. Yikes! The Soup-I can see it, touch it, taste it, but can I smell it??? All the things I need to assure the novel is a valid experience-a great experience for the reader is accomplished in the 2nd revision. Dialog, Descriptive, Narrative, and texture must all be brought into balance. That's why I need to complete the work before revising it. You can't tell what needs revising until the entire work is complete in draft. I also pay attention to redundancy and overstatement (methinks she protests too much).

The mechanics of revision is a walk through the entire work, tightening and snipping. At least 1/3rd of the original draft should be CUT. If a section is so precious (because it highlights my marvelous writing), it should be CUT. It highlights the wrong thing-ME and not the story. This is called "Killing your darlings." The revision work also adds elements. Occasionally a new scene, but generally a new nuance to a character- the TLC needed to bring a 2-D character to 3-D. I check the broad sweep of the work's structure, assuring that it still has a beginning, middle and end, and hasn't drifted off into the murk. Themes are a good thing to graft on now, to shape the work accordingly. I'll now make broad statements like: "This novel is about impending death and how to make the inevitable worthy of the living." Then, I tap and hammer and twist elements along those lines. In short, the revision is less fun, but more important than the draft. The draft touches your writing soul. The revision touches your writing mind.

The last revision(s) (The Jade Owl had 8, while the Third Peregrination had 5) are reactive revisions. You let your ideal readers read the work and listen to their feedback. You also listen to editors and your agent (if you're lucky like me to have one that can actually write). You then do another walk through and polish, cut, add and adjust. In fact, these last set of revisions never end, especially as I am constantly changing, evolving, getting better, but no closer to author's nirvana. When toting manuscripts of 180,000 - 280,000 words in length, editing becomes a full time job. The cleaner your mms. is, the less distracting such tsetse fly issues as "it's-its" and "there-their-they're" become.

Now I have never proposed that writing a novel is easy or formulaic. Even Stephen King's wonderful work On Writing prescribes some excellent methods that King himself violates more than half the time (when one is branded, one can define the process and never need to defend it), but I hope this little essay adds to the universal pool of such matters.

Edward C. Patterson
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