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@obrian-of-the-surface-world

Wow. Thank you so much for all those thoughts. I really appreciate them, especially from someone who has been writing for so long.

I think you caught onto my tendency to plan and then to rush. 😉 The thing is, I’ve written about 12 different novels over about 7 years now. Most of the later ones I’ve outlined, though not super detailed. I usually end up with a draft that’s such a mess that I don’t know how to edit it into shape without rewriting it. So I re-outline and rewrite. And I think I assume my need to rewrite lies in my outlines not being strong enough. So I try to outline more in-depth.

You mentioned that short stories and novels are different, and I’ve definitely learned that they are. But I don’t think that my (usually successful) method for writing a short story would work for novels. For short stories, I make a brief outline, write an incredibly messy draft, and then tweak from there, and it’s fairly easy to turn into a cohesive story. For novels, it’s difficult to ‘tweak’ because of how large they are. So I try to resort to more extensive outlining for novels to fix my habit (or process?) of messy writing and intensive editing. I guess I’m trying to create a really clean draft because editing messy drafts is daunting for me, lol.

Conversely, I could be trying to write something a bit overly complicated for the type of writer I am. I adore reading epic fantasy and exploring politics of made-up worlds. But I most enjoy writing about characters’ inner journeys and transformations. Those are easy for me to keep track of and edit. It’s all the big, plot-ish stuff that my brain starts to get confused on. Part 3 of this story is all set character arc-wise, but my mind can’t generate events in line with the previous plot events that would allow those character arcs to take place.

I’m not sure if all that made sense; I feel a bit like I’m fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what my writing process is for this story and even whether it lines up with my strengths as a writer (though I know working outside your comfort zone and skill level is good too). I don’t know if you would have any insights on all of that from your experience, but I do really appreciate the time you took to say everything you did in your previous post!