Creative Process

What’s a creative process? Well, if you need hourly caffeine intake, that’s creative process. If you need to write your story from end to beginning, that’s creative process. If you need to stand on your head to get the brain juice flowing… that’s just weird, but I suppose that’s creative process too. Basically, anything that enables you to effectively siphon what’s in your head into written material is a component in your personal creative process.

Naturally that means some people have awesome creative processes, where they both channel their imaginative and productive abilities and are able to pound great writing out. Some peoples’ creative processes are slower, more procrastinating, and even if they stay true to their imagination and what they love, they don’t get much done. I’m pretty sure that’s always been me.

Even when I was little, I loved to write. I’m talking probably 6-years-old and up. I remember the first story I really sat down and tried hard to write (on paper); it was called Wally The Waterbug, and it wasn’t a comic, it was a written story. He walked across the road, almost got ran over by a car, and got flung up into the bed of a truck. After the truck pulled into the garage, he got flung into the house somehow (repetitive flinging, I know—I was 6 or 7) where he fell into the cracks of a keyboard. I never got any further, but the idea was that kilobytes and megabytes (in the form of Pac-Man-esque evil creatures) then would chase him around trying to eat him. This poor waterbug clearly had a very upsetting life, and I don’t think the story had much purpose beyond that, but hey.

Imagination is great and all, but if this happens to you, call a doctor. (Image by xbooshbabyx @ devART.)

The reason for the useless trip down memory lane is to highlight the birth of my creative process. I started on something, got bored, and never touched it again. Totally understandable for a little kid, but the problem is, I did that same thing for the next decade or so. I’d start writing something (usually fan-fiction about whatever I happened to be into at the time), and would quickly grow tired of the project before moving onto something else. My creative process was a rather nasty cocktail of procrastination, impatience, and boredom.

So how did I kick it? I didn’t. Well, I did, but bad habits are the hardest ones to kick. I think over the years I’ve gained a little more patience simply through getting older. I make a strong effort to read what I write after the editing process just to see what I’ve accomplished and say “Hey, that’s pretty darn good. This is worth continuing.” I also make sure not to embark on projects that won’t hold my interest. I wrote a short story not long ago that didn’t fall under any of the genres I love so much. It was a thriller, maybe with a little bit of a psychological element thrown in for good measure. I had an idea, and I rolled with it. I put it on paper over the course of a few days. I made sure not to let the ideas in my head grow stale. Why? That brings me to my next point.

I’m what they call a pantser. I explained the term in another one of my posts, but I’ll explain it again.

Pantser: Writes by the seat of his pants—dislikes planning and outlines.
Planner: Plans their writing ahead of time—swears by the use of outlines.

Simple enough, right? Right off the bat, you can probably pick out which one you are. Now most “novice” writers are pantsers, but many famous authors can call themselves pantsers as well. I think when a writer hasn’t developed their craft yet, and hasn’t established exactly what their creative process is, they’re a “novice”. Once you pin down those things, you’ll probably form a structural process. As in, maybe you’ll discover that sitting down and throwing all your ideas down into a document helps you move your story along faster and more effectively. But on the flip-side, many might find that they just prefer flying free. There’s no right way, only the way that works best for you.

In the past, I was young and lazy. I never made outlines, I never did any of that stuff. I just wrote when I wanted to, and ditched my work when I got tired of it. Nowadays? I still don’t use outlines. I’m not against them, but I run with a different method. I have a good memory when it comes to my stories. I know what’s going to happen and when—not because I wrote an outline of it—but because I’ve got the scenes imagined in my head. When you can see the scene in your head as a real, moving scenario, I think you’re far better off than simply referring to a quick, dead blurb of text on a scene such as “Thieves ambush the protagonist, gunfight ensues.” If it’s in your head, you can see the dust fly, smell the gunsmoke, imagine the inner thoughts of your character as he fights for his life. It’s more real, and that translates well when you actually write the scene.

That’s not to say that making use of an outline makes your writing less powerful, or simply worse. On the contrary, sometimes it helps you remember key details that would otherwise be lost. That’s why everyone’s personal creative process is different. I can use my head. I can remember. When I put something into an outline, it takes some of the life out of it, and further than that, it doesn’t allow my story to have the twists and turns and last second changes that I often incorporate. If I sat down and started outlining everything, the writing just wouldn’t be honest. That’s a problem.

Some people feel just the opposite, and that’s totally fine. In the end, you do what works for you. That’s the most important thing. Just remember not to feel bad about yourself because you don’t have some articulate, masterful process of outlining each scene, summarizing every character, etc. If your quirky process creates material that you’re proud of? Well then you’ve got nothing to worry about, friend.