Fandom Incidents

my very efficient writing process: a presentation

Hello hello! Welcome back to Fandom Incidents where I write things about things and you read them by your own free will. Today's episode features me actually doing something original and not just complaining or making observations.

And the topic is... (drumroll please).... me doing (or more realistically not doing) things like writing.

You may have found yourself asking 'Wow, Ranger's so good at updating regularly how does he do it??!?' Well you're in luck my friend, today you'll find out just how I write quality content in a short amount of time and dish it out on a regular basis (sarcasm)

In just a few simple steps, you can follow my same writing process if you care to do so! 

Step One: Planning

Before I write a chapter, I always plan what is going to happen in that chapter. My books are definitely planned. I definitely know what's going to happen in them.

Sometimes, it helps to write down these plans on a scrap of paper or the back of something write-on-able you have laying around. The plan might read something like "there is a conversation about something" and sometimes it might be so detailed as to be like "these two characters have a conversation about something at some point"

Step Two: Starting To Write

This is the hardest part of the writing process as it involves starting something new, and often you may have no idea where to start. I generally begin describing the setting until I can decide what is going to happen. This step often takes a very long time and leads to me just not writing at all.

Step Three: Taking A Break

Once you've written for a hefty two minutes, it is always healthy to take a good twenty minute break to relax and unwind. During this time, you may decide to change one describing word used in the sentence you've written so far about 70 times. 

Step Four: Writing A Little More (But Not Too Much)

Now is the part where I jump to whatever I had planned to write in this chapter without any sort of buildup or lead-in because I have no patience. I write about three words of the start of the scene and stop writing for a bit to word the scene in my head, and eventually get carried away and find myself at the end of it. Continue rushing through writing what you had planned because you might forget how you planned to word it. Forget how you planned to word it anyway.

Remember: if you write too much in one go, you may exhaust your supply of creativity forever and never be able to write again in your life for some reason. Take frequent, definitely necessary, breaks.

Step Five: Staying Hydrated

You've just written a whole exchange (a whopping 100 words) which is a lot of exertion and sweating depending on how fast you raced to write so not to forget things. It is very important to remember to stay hydrated while doing things. Go to the kitchen and spend 10 minutes making tea.

Step Six: Remembering To Snack

Now that you're already in the kitchen, eat something, because once you leave you may spend so much time writing that you never come back (because you are very motivated). Spend 10 more minutes staring at a cupboard and then decide to make a sandwich. Procrastinate eating the sandwich.

Step Seven: Returning and Writing More

At this time, you've finished writing all that you've had pre-planned and can now do whatever you want with your creative genius. I personally tend to come up with the rest of the chapter as I go, and definitely don't decide how it will affect the story at a later time. This is the most productive part of my writing process, and I usually write a few paragraphs before getting distracted.

Step Eight: Variety

You now realize you've been sitting in the same place for an extended period of time. Move somewhere else, or better yet: just move into a different sitting position. If you're listening to music, change the playlist 20 times for no reason and end up going back to what you were listening to in the first place.

Step Nine: Finding Motivation

Wow! Your chapter is already 500 whole words long! You could probably just publish it now! No. Write a little more to set up a new chapter. You probably don't have to, but adding a filler scene at the end would make the chapter super long and would help you seem like a more serious writer who writes a lot. 

Step Ten: Re-reading

Instead of writing more, just read over what you've already written. I usually do this about twenty times before adding a few more words onto the sentence I was working on.

Step Eleven: Googling Something That Is Definitely Related

I remember reading somewhere that there was an elvish lullaby included in a video game production book and now I'm going to find it and memorize it for no reason. Interrupting and completely re-routing your train of thought is a very helpful and healthy writing strategy.

Step Twelve: Finishing the Chapter

Now that I've spent 12 hours on this, it is 3am and I am so tired that I can crank out 1000 words and somehow build the story. The characters are definitely all acting in character and there are definitely no important details left out that I forgot. When finished with this step, I find myself so done with this chapter that I stop writing it entirely and may even start writing something else.

Step Thirteen: Publishing to the Public

Proofreading is for the weak. Publish the chapter without scanning it for typos or mistakes and never think about or look at it again. Forget you wrote the chapter.

Hooray! You've successfully written a chapter of whatever story you've been working on. That's probably enough updates for two weeks, but promise to update again after that. Definitely fulfill that promise.

This whole chapter was written because I'm procrastinating writing a new Elven Gates chapter which says a lot about me pfft 

ANYWAY 

I hope you enjoyed this very helpful step-by-step presentation on how to be a very efficient, very productive writer. (The only other chapter I had in my drafts was one I started about politics and I just... don't want to think about that rn)

Thrandy outttt