Pluck The “Low Hanging Fruit”: A Writing Process

Yesterday I reminded people of the basic Lifewriting pattern for breaking into writing:

1. Write a sentence every day (minimum)
2. Write 1–4 stories a month
3. Polish and submit
4. Don’t rewrite except to editorial request
5. Read 10X what you write
6. Repeat 100X

A reader, Landis Lain said: “Love your books. Is this the same process you use for novel writing?”

And I realized that no, it wasn’t quite. “I didn’t have this when I began, but DID know I had to repeat my process 100X. I used it roughly, but refined my understanding through countless conversations with masters, and countless observations of the behaviors that slammed students into the wall,. I do write every day, and do easily read 10X what I write. Those are the most important adjustments once you’ve actually gotten into the game!”

But that got me thinking that its been a while since I wrote about my specific approach to novels…hmmm. O.K. After publishing more than thirty novels, comprising some three million words of fiction, this is my general process:

1. Start with an idea. Might be a character, in which case I ask “what is the worst thing that could happen to him, and how could it turn out to be the best?” or vice versa. But more likely, I’ll come up with a situation (“what if a time-traveler killed serial killers before their first kill?”) . and then ask…