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Writing - Chapter Creation




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Chapter Creation

(Note: This was written between writing Chapters I and II of Volume 1.)

Every writer has their own style of writing. Some people need to structure and a plan, while others can just write and see where the story goes.

While I'm new to this, I'm pretty sure I'm the first type. Maybe even an extreme of the first type. My writing process seems to be very methodical. (And it's no coincidence that my list happens to have 10 steps to it, and my draft numbering system goes to 5. I just like things to work with nice numbers like that.) It may change as I get more experience, but at the moment this is what I do:

1) Vocabulary

Read. A lot. Of various styles. Develop your vocabulary any way you can, but especially through reading. You can become exposed to dialogue from various sources, but exposure to the descriptive parts of storytelling is pretty much only done through reading. Words are a writers tools, and they need to be well kept to create great work.

2) Characters

Come up with your main characters. Get an idea of their personality. Stories are about characters and their emotions. Events are secondary.

3) World

Come up with the basic idea of what your story is going to say and what the world is like where you're going to say it. For me it was simply, "What is life like in a Vendor Shop in West Luna." If I wasn't working based off a world that was created for me through Ultima Online (and the skewed version of it in Undeniably Sexy: A Theif's Tale), this can be the hardest step to getting started.

4) Goal

Come up with a goal. It doesn't have to be the end goal, but just a goal somewhere in your story. From there it is easy to figure out a starting point, and then figure out the steps to reach the goal. As I did that, what I thought was originally my end goal ended up being maybe the midpoint to my story. It may end up being much less than that as more ideas come to mind, but it's what got the ball rolling.

5) Outline

After you have your starting point and end point, and a general idea of the steps to reach it, start breaking down the chapters into "What is the purpose of this Chapter?" and "Where will it end?" Every chapter should have reason for being in your story, outlining like this will help you keep track of what's supposed to go where. Figuring out the end of each chapter can help you figure out where to begin the next.

6) Draft 1 - Ideas

Barely a draft at all. List down all the points in the chapter that you want to make, and any bits of conversation that you want said. Order isn't important.

7) Draft 2 - Structure

Write your chapter from start to finish, not caring about spelling, grammar, or exact details. Don't interrupt your flow. Just keep on writing to see how all your points fit together and get the order of your paragraphs down.

8) Draft 3 - Fill Out

Begin to fill out your story, finally starting to take the time to get the correct spellings and grammar, but feel free to still use generic phrases that you'll change later. There are still more read throughs and revisions. Also keep in mind what is going on in the next chapter, or even other chapters, volumes down the line. At this point working on Draft 1 of the following chapter isn't a bad idea.

9) Draft 4 - Polish

This is actually multiples revisions clumped into one category. Make all the changes necessary to polish up the story, make sure everything will fit together within itself and with the rest of the chapters. Streamline your story so all unnecessary words are cut out. Cut out five words when one word will do. Just as every chapter should have a point, so should every paragraph and every word. Take some time off between revisions to clear your head to get a fresh persepective before you edit again. Or you can actually get a fresh perspective by asking others to edit your work.

10) Draft 5 - Done!

The finished product! After dozens of revisions, the chapter tells what it's supposed to tell, in as a colorful way as you can manage. Spelling mistakes and typos eliminated. Time to publish!

Calligraphy

In addition to the regular chapter, there will also be some kind of document, journal entry, note, etc. added to the end of the chapter that will written in calligraphy (occasionally with some drawings added to it, such as the first chapter). The writing process is similar for most cases, adjustments need to be made concerning the style of writing and font chosen to write it in to have the right tone.


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