So, I was sitting here and writing the next chapter of my Dragon Age 2 fanfic when I discovered that I needed a bit of a break. Anders just asked Hawke to be serious for once, and I'm not sure he can live up to that. So, I made some tea, and then started to think about writing process. How does a fic come about? I see artists talk about it all the time, sometimes even posting step by step sketches, inks and so on so we can watch the thing evolve. Writers rarely do. So, in the interest of science, here is how one of my chapters come about.
1: The characters starts talking to each other in my head when I drive to/from work, or walk around tinkering with my robots and machines. This is when fics are born, as well as many little absurdities that will never see the light of day. If the characters ever stop talking in my head, there will be no fics.
2: When I have time, I write these snippets of dialog down in my notebook. Sometimes when the machine is working and I have to wait, at other times during lunch or breaks. Most of the time it's purely dialog, though sometimes full scenes just explode on the page and can be translated almost literally to the finished fic.
3: When I am back home, I sit down at my wee little netbook and transcribes all my nearly illegible notes straight into my wordpad. Why wordpad? It came with the netbook and I want no spellcheck or grammar options. I should make a 'book' for it in Liquid Story Binder since that is the awesome program I use the most, but I just haven't had time. Too busy writing new chapters.
4: Then I start to fill in the dialog, not caring overmuch if it is in character or not. I want the gist of the story down, and for me it starts with the talking for most chapters. I often just write down other scenes as -fighting a crowd- or -running for their lives- just as placeholders for what will happen.
5: Now we are ready for the opening scene. I sit down and think what the most effective opening scene/sentence would be. I find it very important to pull you in from the start. So many fics out there take a long time to get going. I would advice everybody to go through your books at home and see what the authors have picked for the first sentence, I guarantee it is not just something that ended up there by chance. This is the part where I spend the most time, sometimes retooling entire chapters just because they don't have a good enough opening.
6: Then the proper writing starts. Filling in the scenes, making sure the action is tense, the talking gets snappy, the pacing is fast. Often a lot of dialog gets cut at this stage because it goes on for too long, and sometimes I have to invent new things because the pacing is off. I also think about what I want the chapter to say. I have three basic types of chapters: Banter, Action and Smut. They all need different kinds of pacing, and some chapters are mixtures of each other.
7: The end. The end is as important as the beginning, because here is where you hook your readers. Why should they pick up the next chapter/fic? As people might have noticed by now I love cliffhangers and foreshadowing, setting up something that we are promised in the next chapter, or leaving the reader hanging. The important thing to think about with cliffhangers is that in order to work you must have had several payoffs so far already in the story. A story with an even pacing and then a cliffhanger just feels unfinished. If it had been a roller coaster ride so far though, then you are already prepared for the drop and just wants more of it. Not all chapters should end in cliffhangers though, trepidation or closure also works fine.
8: Now the basic chapter is done. This is when I pick up the dragonage Wiki (or youtube) and read through some of the character banter there in my head. I need to make sure it feels fresh. I then go through the chapter and makes sure it works when reading it out loud in my head. I fix any dialog so it's more in tune with the character's voice, and do a final cleanup.
9: No beta. Yes, I have no beta, I am not a native english speaker, and rely on the grammar and spellcheck of Word. *hangs head* My readers catches some mistakes, and honestly? I am not a grammar nazi nor expert. Nor ashamed of my fuckups. I always tell myself that I will come back and clean up/rewrite when the entire story is done. I might just do that. I'd rather write new stuff than fix the old though.
10: I post the chapter at various places, reads it through online, and immediately catches a lot of mistakes I didn't see on the first readthrough. Fix and reload. This can continue for days...
So, there is my writing process. Hope you found it enlightening. Because if there is one thing I love more than writing, it is talking about writing... or, no wait, that is a lie. But If anybody have questions, shoot!