Notes

When in Doubt, Work Harder
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There’s an aspect of writing fiction (mostly) that I have realized works for me better than the traditional approach.
Note that this approach works for writing fiction pieces and anything which requires imagination and not extensive fact based research.
Generally, before sitting down to write a piece we tend to map out in our heads, how the article will pan out. Some of us use software and notes to organize our thoughts and form a structure.
Recently, I have started writing a long fiction piece and was wondering how to go about it. So I had started with creating a map, a structure of how I want the writing to fit together but I was stuck after sometime. The thing with writing fiction is, if you are not sure where your story is going it’s hard to form a structure. So I spent a week trying to figure out where my story is going. I was irritated after a week because frankly it was going nowhere.
I found that thinking excessively without writing a single word is a form of writers’ procrastination. It’s the easy way out to avoid making hard decisions and discovering the practical obstacles that pop up only when you start writing the piece. It impedes the process of actually creating something tangible.
It feels comfortable and secure to start with a well-defined path to follow once you start writing, but even though it is nice to have the constrained path in mind, the useful feedback comes from reviewing the first draft, not the arrangement of the ideas. When we use our imagination in writing, it is better to let it flow untamed and then structure the output in a presentable format rather then curating the ideas when they begin to form.
The focus then shifts to getting to a tangible output ridiculously fast and it also provides extra dimensions with a pages full of new ideas to work with — ideas that might have been lost if you had spent time dressing them up in your initial map. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer order just as much as the next guy but this way works. I have already written more than 6k words (which needs to be edited down to 3–4k) with just a basic premise and a central character in two days. No thinking, no mapping, no planning. I am further along with this piece after two days than I have been in the previous two weeks.
The major advantage with having something tangible in front of you is that the draft provides you with infinitely more valuable comebacks than just planning, then trying to build on from that. In both scenarios we are just creating premises. We do not really know how our stories with shape up to until we really see them finished. So whether we spend the first two weeks trying to figure out the flow OR just blurt out the ideas then review them two days later, the end product matters. But the latter case presents us with a wider scope in a shorter time — which totally works for me.
Of course, the traditional method works in certain cases but if every element of the piece is not apparently clear, the best way for clarity is having all your cards face up. For the most part, though, I prefer having the time effective method which leaves more time for editing (which is important af), revisions and modifications.
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