by Adriana Kantcheva
I started writing fiction as soon as I learned the alphabet (the Cyrillic alphabet, back then). Without giving much thought to method, I set out to please my heart’s desire. It never occurred to me to outline first. This is not how my creative brain works. My instinct, for better or worse, is to plunge straight into drafting.
I love the uncertainty of a blank page, the vagueness of an unwritten story. My wily creative alter ego finds outlining not only boring but fatal to productivity. When I plot a story in advance, I no longer want to write it. I perceive it as already completed. For a while, my chaotic method served me fine. That is, until I sat down to write a novel.
My Earlier Process
The inception of a story for me is akin to a lightning strike at night that offers a sudden glimpse into an alien vista or an impossible situation. I’m hooked. I want to follow the crumbs and see where they lead.
Occasionally, I got lucky, and a more-or-less coherent plot emerged in my first draft. More often though, I rewrote large portions because the final concept surfaced only after penning the ending. Some drafts I found so hard to fix that I abandoned them. Others I never finished because I discovered midway that the initial idea was not as enticing as I’d thought.
Not an ideal approach, clearly, but I didn’t feel compelled to change it. Writing a short story—even a novelette—is not a big investment of time compared to a novel. I didn’t mind the fallout because I loved, and still do, exploring through drafting. But when I tried my hand at a novel, I ended up in such a tangled maze of revisions that I had to face the shortcomings of my process.
The Turning Point
Per my usual method, I plunged into drafting my novel as soon as I found a beguiling enough idea. This resulted in a draft the size of three books, which took five years to complete, after which point I finally realized that I needed to split it up. I carved out roughly the first third, which now had no proper ending. It took me about five rewrites to get that utterly unwieldy first draft into something a reader could grasp. It’s now awaiting a final revision.
In the meantime, to keep sane, I wrote more short stories and novellas. All the time, I couldn’t ignore how my usual method resulted in a satisfying experience when working on shorter pieces, but utter frustration when it came to my novel. Things had to change. Especially now that I was itching to write a completely new novel.
My Emerging Process
Desperate to change my ways, I tried to plan out a story during a recommended-to-me course on plotting. We were asked to pick a completely undeveloped idea to work with. I enjoyed the process for as long as we dealt with overarching concepts of character motivation, but the more granular the assignments became, the more they ground against my creative grain. I felt deeply uncomfortable with filling out the assigned worksheets.
In retrospect, I realize two things: 1) The course, which lasted a month, was too fast for me; I need longer than that to sit with a brand-new idea. 2) Worksheets don’t work for a mind that develops ideas organically rather than sequentially, which I think is often the case with pantsers. Nothing kills my muse like checklists and fill-in-the-blanks. But I don’t feel I wasted my time. Learning what doesn’t work is valuable. This experience brought me closer to figuring out how my creativity ticked.
The Next Novel
Hesitant over how to approach my second novel draft, I postponed starting altogether. Then, the school holidays began. Then, a workshop.
But all the while, my new idea cooked in my head. I dreamed about my characters and their lives. More of the worldbuilding and the magic system took shape. I learned the ending.
In late winter, I sat down to organize my copious notes. These were far too random to be called an outline. They were, rather, a haphazard outpouring of ideas, even if some dealt with a few concrete plot points. What mattered was that I still didn’t know all that would happen in the novel. Having the ending in mind didn’t bother me because I only had a vague sense of how to get there. There was still so much to explore.
When I finally started writing, it took me five months to pour out a coherent enough first draft for my alpha-readers. I certainly haven’t escaped future revisions, but what I’m now facing in terms of fixes doesn’t even come close to the arduous rewrites I went through with my first novel.
Takeaways
When I look back and compare how I started that long-ago first novel with my current one, I see the main difference isn’t so much that I had more of the plot in my head the second time around, but that I had a firmer grasp on the themes, worldbuilding, and character arcs and backstories. Having these elements in place before starting to draft saved me heaps of trouble. What it took was not outlining or reliance on worksheets but giving my idea time to simmer.
How long is long enough, you might ask? I’d say that depends on the length and complexity of the project, but what I will look for from now on when letting an idea ferment is a feeling of ripeness —a sense of stability balanced against richness in nuance. Not so much a flash-and-bang but a persistent scintillation.
I don’t regret jumping rudderless and mentor-less in the great ocean of creativity when I was younger. I believe that’s one of the best things a writer can do: follow their natural inclinations to discover their own method for crafting their fiction. I don’t advocate against learning from others, but it’s also important to be aware of one’s own creative idiosyncrasies. Every writer’s workflow has something unique to it. It’s up to us to discover this uniqueness and how to blend other writers’ experiences and wisdom into our own creative needs.
Adriana Kantcheva writes speculative tales of life’s emotional conundrums, often with a pinch of idealism. Born in Bulgaria, she lived in six countries before settling in Germany. She holds a PhD in molecular biology and has worked as a researcher, science editor, scuba diver, and flight attendant. Her fiction appears or is forthcoming in Short Édition, PodCastle, Escape Pod, and elsewhere. Learn more about Adriana at CatchingWords.com, or subscribe to her newsletter at sendfox.com/CatchingWords.