Creative Flow, Scene by Scene!

I love when I hear a writer say, "I write when inspiration hits me."

BLAH! That is what I hear from those writers. . . . . .

As a writer, among other duties, I don't have that luxury to write when it HITS ME! And most professional writers don't have that kind of time either.

I'm not saying my muse doesn't strike at crazy times, it does, but my muse also doesn't show up when I need it to. And those are the times that I'm talking about. That is about 90% of my writing time.

Wouldn't it be great if every time you sat down to write, your creativity just flowed over?

Over the past couple years I have come up with a few tips and tricks on how to maintain the creative flow when you sit down to write every single book.

1) Ideas. I'm always trying to come up with ideas for new books. I've said that I carry my journal every where I go. It's a journal of ideas and they are all gathered in one place. Easy to find. Some writers use journals to jot down ideas, sayings, notes etc. . .and never use the journal for the intended purpose. So don't go out and buy a journal to to write things down because you will have a whole collection of journals without having written a novel.

Generally one or two ideas will catch your fancy. And if you are like me, you begin to process those ideas. "If this happened, then what would happen if that happened?" These questions begin to form your idea into a scene in your story.

2) Collect information. Ideas turn into concrete research which leads to more creativity and more ideas. All the information that you collect will start to fit together. The information will help you see relationships between your characters, places they need to go, and help you understand where your idea is taking you.

3) Sift! This is the fun part where you get to go through all the ideas and information you have collected and begin to see the concrete evidence you need for the bare bones of your scene in your novel. The more and more you go through your information, the more you are going to have that scene formed in your head.

4) Coffee stage. This is the stage where all the information from point 1-3 hang out in our head for a while and begin to percolate. If you don't like coffee, it can be likened to a crock pot. The ideas that you have need to bubble over. This happens to me at the oddest times, like shower, taking my dogs for a walk, sitting in church. You will have those eureka moments...just let it come to you. Let it percolate!

5) Flow baby flow. Your scene should be flowing at this point. Embrace it! Your ideas should be appearing out of no where and it will hit you at all hours in the day, and this includes 2 AM! This is the fun part!

6) Share! You have something to share with your critique partner/group. Get feedback. Get their opinion and ideas from what you have done so far. A lot of times they can help your creative juices flow more with their input.

Just last week I was meeting with my critique group, when one of my partners asked me a question about the mystery. I hadn't thought of that little tweak, but what she suggested was GREAT and was easy to incorporate into my scene. It gave me a little excitement, stirring the creative pot, causing me to write another 2k words!

7) Start over. Yes, you have to start these steps all over again. Scene after scene.

Ultimately it's up to you to write the novel. It's up to you to take your ideas and shape them into your vision, your voice, and get it to your readers.

I signed up to be an author, not a chef!

It's almost been ONE YEAR since I self-published my first book! The time flew by and I have sold a lot, BUT that isn't what has amazed me most. I knew that I was going to be fine in the marketing and promoting part of the book process. I knew that editing was one of the hardest things about self-publishing. AND I knew that finding the right cover artist was almost as important as the story plot itself.

BUT the one thing that surprised me the most about being a published writer is the art of writing the DAMN book itself! Within the last twelve months I have published over eight books. With each book I have learned something different, and I feel like each book has gotten better. I have NEVER claimed to be an in-depth, emotional writer. I'm the beach read for my women's fiction and a cozy mystery author. Neither of those require a lot of thought on the part of the reader.

Still. . .every single book out there has to be edited. I've made it known that the editing process is my least favorite part. I'm a panster and I can finish a novel in a couple months. The editing and layering takes another couple months because I lolly-gag.

Now that I'm editing my eleventh novel, I can honestly say that I have learned to embrace, not love, but embrace the process. It's all the slicing and dicing that gets me in a bind. I have begun to break my novel down into three layering stages.

1) FIRST LAYER: Writing the book. Yes! This would be getting the bare bones of your novel into print. I have changed my thinking from just sitting down and writing (which I do because I'm a panster) to trying to write the best first draft I possibly can. I still pants, but I'm more aware of the grammar, punctuation, scenes, etc...
You are writing the book, this layer includes the beginning, middle, and end. This includes the conflict, goals, and motivation of your characters.

2) SECOND LAYER: Scene layering. After I have written the first draft. I take a good look at all the scenes in my novels. This is where I have learned to beef up the description and make sure the scenes in the novel propel the novel forward.
It depends on how you write or your voice in how you layer your scenes. I write humorous, and in my first draft I write humorous dialogue and some little humorous tid-bits. The scene layering gives me the opportunity to add in those humorous tags throughout the novel to create an impact. Don't put in so much scene detail to lose the reader or overpower your plot line.
Give enough scene detail to grab the reader and lead them down the rabbit hole.

3) THIRD LAYER: Painting layering. This is where you make your novel colorful, full of life. This is where you would lay the description on THICK! And this includes all those minor details like describing the killer's hands, or the lover's hands. Describe the furniture, the animals, the sounds around your characters, etc. . .You want to paint your readers a picture, like it's a movie playing in their head. You are adding more and more meat to the bones of the story.

Building your novel is like building a house or even an empire, or a chef building a great meal or baker layering that cake.

Remember, ROME wasn't built in a day!

Story Fix blog has a great blog on layering. Check it out!

How do you layer your novel? What is your process?

Gerri Brousseau, you are the winner of The Tricked Out Toolbox~Marketing and Promotional Tools Every Writer Needs from the give-away last Friday! Email me through my contact page! You have one week to claim your book, April 30, 2012.


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