Going Pro

Chapter 1: Finding Time to Write

Whenever I mention I’m a writer, the most frequent response I get is something along the lines of, “I always wanted to write but…” What follows is usually an excuse. I’m too busy, or I have a full-time job, or some other reason why you can’t find the time to write.

I understand you’re busy. We all are. But you can’t be a writer if you never write. And the only way to find time to write is to make time.

Many of my friends who write say they wish they could take time off from their day jobs and just sit down and write. Funny thing, though—that never happens. You get a week off from work and you think great, now I’ll finally get a chance to work on my story. Only you never actually get anything written. When you sit down in front of the computer, the blank screen is intimidating, so you decide to surf the web instead. You’d rather watch TV or play video games instead of writing. Something always comes up. By the end of the week, you have nothing to show for your effort, and when you go back to the day job, you think, “If only I had more time.”

The sad fact of the matter is that you’ll never have more time. We all get twenty-four hours a day, and in those hours we eat, sleep, and work. We spend time with our loved ones, our family and friends. We go to the movies, go out to dinner, go to the gym. We make time for everything we want to do, everything we feel we have to do, and somehow writing never really seems to rank very high on those lists.

But if you want to be a writer, the only way to do it is to sit down and write. Force yourself to write, because if you wait for inspiration to strike, it never will. Set aside a time when you can concentrate on writing—maybe an hour in the morning before you go to work, or an hour at the end of the evening when everyone else is in bed and you’re unwinding from your day. Creating a specific time and sticking to it will give you a sense of a schedule, which will help you in finding the time to write.

At first, you may find yourself staring at a blank screen. That happens. But the more you think about the story, the more it will fall into place, until you can’t not write it. Giving yourself a period of time—be it fifteen minutes or an hour—every day during which you’re open to inspiration will flex your creative muscles and train you when to write. If you don’t set aside the time, then you’ll never get that story finished.

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Once you get into a routine, you’ll find that your story will start to flow more freely. However, don’t think too far ahead when you sit down to write. My advice is to never think farther than two or three scenes from the scene you’re currently writing. That way, you can allow the characters to take over the story when they start to find their voices, and you don’t think your way out of the story.

There are two schools of thought on planning out a story—plotters and pantsers. Plotters sit down ahead of time and write down everything that happens in their story from start to finish, outlining the plot. Then they take the outline and write from it, hitting each point as they do so.

Pantsers don’t plan out in advance. They get an idea and just let it flow wherever it goes. That’s the way I write. I’ve found that when I think a story through from start to finish, in my mind it’s then complete. There are no surprises, no reason for me to write it out now. I know where it’s going and it no longer interests me.

I think a lot of first-time writers get discouraged when they try plotting out a story. It grows bigger with each scene, each character, until it scares you out of working on it. How could you possibly tackle an epic novel when you’ve never finished a story before? So break it down and don’t look too far ahead. Think through the scene you want to write next, and let your mind drift to the scene after that, but don’t go farther than that. Let the story lead you, not the other way around.

There’s nothing more exciting than the moment when the story and its characters begin to take you to places you didn’t know they intended to go. Without an outline, you don’t have to try to force them to play nice; you can just hang on and go along for the ride.

Obviously, some genres lend themselves to an outline, such as mystery or thriller stories—you need to know where you’re going if you want to be able to leave clues along the way. But if outlining a story makes it fizzle out for you, just get down everything you can, and then go back and add in anything you need to in earlier parts of the story during editing.

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Another hazard that befalls a lot of new writers is getting distracted instead of writing. When a story seems too difficult to move forward, you might decide to research some aspect of it instead. So you waste hours online Googling 19th Century costumes, or Japanese ghost stories, or the mating habits of lobsters. Anything that might be more interesting than working on your story.

Unfortunately ninety percent of research is background information that will never make it into your story. While researching a topic or specific detail will add depth and believability to your story, too much will overwhelm your reader. The same happens when you add too much description to your writing, turning your prose purple. At least you’re writing something, right?

But going into great detail about a character’s wardrobe or the feng shui of a room’s layout doesn’t advance the s********e detail is necessary, of course, but does your reader really need a three paragraph description of what your character looks like? A few highlights will suffice—eye and hair color, maybe a descriptive phrase about a particular aspect of your character’s anatomy that stands out. A bow-shaped mouth, or a ski-slope nose, or a Neanderthal brow. Don’t force the reader to picture your character exactly the same way you picture him or her. Don’t describe what he or she wears all the time; we don’t really care. Unless it’s pertinent to the story, it’s only filler.