What is your writing process?

[spark]

My question to other writers is: What is your process from taking the inspiration of a story and turning it into a final product?

Do you outline the complete story and flesh out the characters?  I start writing and let the moment dictate the personality of the character.  I have a story where the main character was meant to be the epitome of the classic 80's spoiled rich frat boy.  The kind of guy that you want to see knocked down a peg.  As I wrote him, his voice became somebody who despite his wealth and privilege, felt unloved and abandoned by his parents.  I think that made it a more complex story.

How do you go from that first idea to the final product?

I'm asking this because we are all eagerly awaiting the conclusion of the best diaper story ever IMHO.  If you are not reading All My Mother's Rules, you should.  I know that @MinnesotaWriter has a process and he outlined the basics of the story, and I think he knew where his story would conclude when he started writing it 3 years ago.

I got so tired of myself abandoning stories, that I when I wrote Summer with Aunt Amanda, I made sure to finish the narrative before I started to edit, and then publish the story as I edit and reworked the method.   I like that method because I can catch continuity errors, or sometimes I'll have a name for something that I came up with on my first go, but then I come up with a better name of the group after I've written some sections.

My process is: i get ideas while I'm laying in bed, usually between the time that I first wake (5am) and get out of bed.    When I get one that I want to flesh out deeper, I write a rough draft up to a stopping point.     Usually, that narrative is fine.  I'm happy with the story, but the grammar and physical writing is terrible.  The first time I go through a chapter, I'm almost reworking the whole chapter.     I then use the read-aloud function to make sure the words sound how I want them to.  I can usually type around 3000 words an hour when I'm doing a rough draft, but it takes me about 3 hours to edit 1000 words.

 

 

[ValentinesStuff]

I'm not a fast writer, nor am I a slow writer. I'm a half fast writer.

 

I do have a problem with distr- SQUIRREL!

 

I do get ideas in bed, unfortunately before falling asleep.  So I later have to try to recreate them.

[SanguineReader]

My method is close to yours spark, say i never wrote anything done when the story came to me, i am doing it after the fact(so much regret over that). Its just that i can go so deep inside my mind, I live out my thoughts in my head. I began last summer, after being inspired by something, i just thought about it. i got so engrossed in it that i spent 6 weeks of all my off time just staring off into space, in my head i was living it, feeling it, hearing the dialogue in my mind. It was a lot of fun, but eventually i made the decision to write it down. The story i was making met a lot to me and i never wanted to forget. I am not a writer, i used to be a math teacher if that tells you anything lol, major learning curve. but i have been forcing myself to relearn things they teach you in school. I have been writing like a mad man, i don't have a structure to this, its just all in my head. and i write one scene as i remember it, then another. and latter in the editing process i have to figure out how to connect everything. not the best method i know, but its what i got. and i do the read aloud function to.

 

I am getting close to a major shift in the story, and will have to structure that out carefully. and i plan on learning as much about how to do that before i get there. and hopefully sticking to that method in the future.

[spark]

2 hours ago, SanguineReader said:

My method is close to yours spark, say i never wrote anything done when the story came to me, i am doing it after the fact(so much regret over that). Its just that i can go so deep inside my mind, I live out my thoughts in my head. I began last summer, after being inspired by something, i just thought about it. i got so engrossed in it that i spent 6 weeks of all my off time just staring off into space, in my head i was living it, feeling it, hearing the dialogue in my mind. It was a lot of fun, but eventually i made the decision to write it down. The story i was making met a lot to me and i never wanted to forget. I am not a writer, i used to be a math teacher if that tells you anything lol, major learning curve. but i have been forcing myself to relearn things they teach you in school. I have been writing like a mad man, i don't have a structure to this, its just all in my head. and i write one scene as i remember it, then another. and latter in the editing process i have to figure out how to connect everything. not the best method i know, but its what i got. and i do the read aloud function to.

 

I am getting close to a major shift in the story, and will have to structure that out carefully. and i plan on learning as much about how to do that before i get there. and hopefully sticking to that method in the future.

I have the free version of Grammarly, which does a good job with basic grammar.  BTW- Grammarly 

I think of my editing process as though I'm a sculptor.  My rough draft is just creating the form.  The next stage is refining the form and I'll still make big changes.  I'll move parts and eliminate repetitive sections.   The read-aloud function helps polish the story.

I'm close to finishing up a story that I've worked on since August.  I've got a couple of chapters left.   I'll probably start to edit that in March.   But this week I got an idea about a 24-year-old man with a growth deficiency and an insanely over-protective mother.  The mother keeps gaslighting him and you can guess what happens.  I didn't want to lose that story, so I've written 12k words since Friday.

[SanguineReader]

sculpting, sounds about right, i imagine trimming a hedge. But grammarly, i am intrigued. i will look into that. i know i will stay have to write it, but having something to shake out the clutter would be nice

Sounds like a cool project you are working on, hope it turns out well.

[spark]

2 hours ago, SanguineReader said:

sculpting, sounds about right, i imagine trimming a hedge. But grammarly, i am intrigued. i will look into that. i know i will stay have to write it, but having something to shake out the clutter would be nice

Sounds like a cool project you are working on, hope it turns out well.

I couldn't write a story without Grammarly, and I couldn't publish it without the read-aloud.   My last few stories are well-written and easy to read.   I don't know if my narratives are great because they follow the same basic theme: a guy likes to wear diapers and gets to wear diapers with an idealized caregiver.

I'm happy with the project that I'm almost done with and excited about the one that I worked on this weekend.  The first one delves into an eternal conflict and you have a character that you want to hate, but can't.    My caregivers are unrealistically nurturing, but that plays a big part in the conflict.

The new one is exciting because the main character has a real issue with being viewed as a child.  FTR- that's a real syndrome.  Some adults are proportionally small, and some of them never go through puberty.  I think I've realistically addressed those issues.  the mother is afraid to let him grow up, which makes sense considering that he looks like a child.  The gaslighting will lead you to believe that his mom might be right, even though you always realize that he needs to escape from his mom's control.  I'm also planning to get an older sister, who has similar growth issues, but less intense, and gets caught up in their mother's web.

 

[SanguineReader]

spent the last few hours checking it out and other ai tools.

I can see why you like it, should save me quite some time seeing how grammar is the bane of my existence, lol.

Sounds like an intresting story.

 

what i am writing, so hard to explain. but its my answear to the Diaper dimension, which i found to be to cruel for comfort. My story takes place here in this world, there is a gentic componet to this but essentially everyone in the world as a gene that sometimes flips on. some people become bigs, others littels. anyway, the MC is a dl. kind of freaked out that his love of diapers will get him to be triggered or that he might be a surpressed littel. Head space, is like a condition in the book, casuing you to regress mentally to whatever age. Suprisingly the story is not really about being babyied or diapers either. its about finding family. The real conflict centers on the MC past, what he supressed, a lot of truama from when he was a kid.

the second MC, is a big, but they both develop a platonic friendship as they talk out the fears, and just live life. at some point things are so bad for the MC that he takes robert up on his offer to try living like a littel for a month, seeing if he gets triggard. about finding out who he is suppose to be.

Other character come into. A mommy like figure, and a little girl, who becomes like a sister to him. the babying is rely a form of therapy form him as he becomes more and more vunerable. in time you learn about his past and he finlly starts to heal and grief many people who had died in the past. the book is called Littel or not. and it ends with the conclusion of what he discovered from the babying/ thereapy. i leave it as a cliff hanger but technically you should be able to figure it. then there is a sequel and some oter stuff i am working on. I Mostly focuse on cuddeling, simply being held is like my favorite thing. you dont always have to dress up all the way to get what you need.

 

and in te end the MC just wants to have a family again. its ment to be touching if i can write it that way. tons of diaper and all that, but it really is about physical affection with people you love, not in like a dirty way. I could be more expressive on this to make this sound way cooler, but i am leaving that to my self for now

 

i have like 250 pages currently, sigh, so much work to do and i dont even want to think about the editting.

 

 

[spark]

20 minutes ago, SanguineReader said:

spent the last few hours checking it out and other ai tools.

I can see why you like it, should save me quite some time seeing how grammar is the bane of my existence, lol.

Sounds like an intresting story.

i have like 250 pages currently, sigh, so much work to do and i dont even want to think about the editting.

 

 

I think Grammarly will help you a lot.  I hope this doesn't sound harsh because you're writing is good, but it would be easier to follow if you had a better grasp of writing conventions.  There is a reason that those conventions exist.  My number one pet peeve when reading stories is wall of text, and putting multiple speakers in the same paragraph.  Add a paragraph for each speaker.  I had one story that I had to read 3 times to figure out who said what.

I've avoided most of the DD stories (not sure why- but I do), but yours sounds good.

My advice with the editing is to take it one step at a time.  It takes me a long time to edit, but if I've completed the narrative- I know where I want to go and that helps with the narrative.

PS-I've tried the writing chapter- edit-post chapter- write method and I ended up in a cul-de-sac.

 

[SanguineReader]

writing conventions?.... and this is why i posted on daily for helpful things like that. I am very good with constructive criticism, so no worries and thanks.

writing conventions? really don't know what that is. i know how to express my self just find, but grammar, spelling, English, just has never been my thing. i don't know how to structure text to make it easier for reader. im on discords and a few people have been kind enough to help me out here and there.

But honestly, i dont know what i am doing, its baffles me that you think that what i shared was good. its a surprised to hear, though i got told that a few times this week on discord.

the two scene i shared i probably my best work. as for the technicality of writing goes. i have other scene that i hope invoke the emotion that i am going for, the way i feel when i read them i want others to feel them to. i actually think of them as my best work but i have some editing to do over there. but there close, mostly just the dialogue.

My strengths are in math in science, but i have this story i want to tell and i have been writing non stop since i got committed to putting it on paper.

any hints would be appricated

 

[spark]

55 minutes ago, SanguineReader said:

writing conventions?.... and this is why i posted on daily for helpful things like that. I am very good with constructive criticism, so no worries and thanks.

writing conventions? really don't know what that is. i know how to express my self just find, but grammar, spelling, English, just has never been my thing. i don't know how to structure text to make it easier for reader. im on discords and a few people have been kind enough to help me out here and there.

But honestly, i dont know what i am doing, its baffles me that you think that what i shared was good. its a surprised to hear, though i got told that a few times this week on discord.

the two scene i shared i probably my best work. as for the technicality of writing goes. i have other scene that i hope invoke the emotion that i am going for, the way i feel when i read them i want others to feel them to. i actually think of them as my best work but i have some editing to do over there. but there close, mostly just the dialogue.

My strengths are in math in science, but i have this story i want to tell and i have been writing non stop since i got committed to putting it on paper.

any hints would be appricated

 

Writing conventions are punctuation, spelling, and grammar.  If you do those three things well, but you don't say anything, it's garbage.  FTR- that happens a lot.

The opposite is having something interesting to say, but the spelling, punctuation, and grammar distract from your message.  There is a reason we capitalize the first letter of a sentence (PS- check your first letters).  There is a reason we use commas and period marks.  I'm not great at knowing the rules- but Grammarly does.

You've written 250k words, which is a s-ton of labor.  If you present that in an unreadable format, that labor is wasted.  If you use tools you have to make it accessible to the ready- that labor becomes appreciated

[SanguineReader]

I agree, i will get a lot of use out of it, thank you. also i think that was a typo. I meant 150k.

[Little Sherri]

 

This has been an interesting discussion. 

I'm relatively new to writing stories here; I have two of them on the go, but I struggle to find the time to add to them. I'm trying two different techniques - with the original story, I wrote about a dozen chapters before I "published" any of them, and I'm always running several chapters ahead of what I post, which allows me to have a better idea of where things are going, and to go back and change details if they become inconsistent with where I end up steering the characters or the plot. I tend to edit and reedit and reedit again on this story, and it has accidentally gone from something that could have been short, to almost a novel, but I have developed an affection for the characters, and they seem to be demanding more time to become who they are, and to tell their stories. 

On the other one, I committed to myself that I would write chapters and then "publish" them as I went, because I had a story idea I wanted to bat around but I did not want to end up with two long-form stories going at the same time. However, even though I'm writing them one at a time, the chapters still required nuanced "tooling", and it really isn't progressing much faster than the other story. 

I really enjoy getting into the process, but spitting out a chapter of either takes me at least a few hours, and that is time I seldom have. But I am no good at giving them twenty minutes here and there, which would be easier to free up. I'm like a method actor - I have to put the characters on and walk around in them for a while, and I can't do that in a few minutes. I wish I could. 

What I'm "good" at (relatively speaking) is occupying a character in a moment, and, assembling realistic, detailed descriptions of settings and situations. To use a nautical metaphor, I can take you into one crewmembers cabin, and sketch out the room and the character and why he's in conflict with another crewmember, and then take them both to the engine room and devise some interesting situation. What I'm not so good at is steering the whole ship. I don't struggle very much with grammar, generally. 

What I should have done is write out a basic plot summary, a map to where I want to go - this ship is leaving port in London and it's headed for Spain, now what's going to happen on the way there? Instead, I put the ship out to sea right away, and then started veering around while I tried to figure out where I was ultimately headed, and, how long the journey was going to be. I originally packed the characters for a couple of weeks on the water, and now they're circling the globe...

I'm learning from the process. Maybe next time, I won't put out to see until the whole trip has been planned out!