critique Archives - Anastasia Suen

Go-Kart Rush (ghostwritten by Anastasia Suen)

Q. Should I write my book from beginning to end?
A. Yes and no. Writing a story with a beginning, middle, and end is your goal, but most books don’t reveal themselves in order page by page.

If your book comes to mind from beginning to end, by all means, write it down in that order. And if it doesn’t come to you that way, join the crowd!

“No, I don’t use an outline. Of course, I also don’t write in a straight line; I write in lots of little pieces and then glue them together like a jigsaw puzzle.” ~ The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon

Yes, some of us write in circles. I write my ideas down and then I circle back and add more. I move up and down, up and down the page adding a tidbit here, a snippet there.

I capture my ideas on paper before I use the computer. The computer is linear and paper is not. So I write on scraps of paper first–notes here, notes there, all over the house. (This is my “plotter” side.)

I also use a notebook to write the first draft of a chapter in longhand as the words come. I write down whatever comes to mind, even the words that don’t make sense yet. (This is my “panster” side.)

These plotter and panster actions are the prewriting step that you see on those Five Stages of Writing charts at schools.

The Five Stages of Writing

Prewriting
Drafting
Revising
Editing
Publishing

The first four stages of writing are thinking and changing stages.

You don’t have to move from beginning to end through the five stages of writing either. For example, revising a chapter of your novel may lead to drafting a completely new scene and to do that, you may need to prewrite with little scraps of paper (plotter) or a blank page that you just fill with words as they come to mind (pantser).

Don’t be afraid of the thinking and changing stages of writing. Let your imagination run wild and have fun–playing with words!

Q. How do I write a children’s book?
A. Write down your ideas as they come to mind.

Writing doesn’t have to be hard. Just write down your thoughts! You can do that. When an idea comes to mind, when a snippet of a scene pops into your head, write it down and save it. Day after day, week after week, your book will show up on the page–if you give yourself permission to let the words flow.

Trying to edit while you write just leads to frustration! Writing and editing are different hats to wear, different ways of thinking. Trying to do both at the same time just doesn’t work. (This is yet another “been there, done that” situation.)

For the early drafts of my beginning reader Loose Tooth I tried writing and editing at the same time. I went through draft after draft trying to make the story perfect and NOTHING was working. Then I read The Right to Write by Julia Cameron.

“We are forever editing, leaving out the details that might not be pertinent. We are trained to self-doubt, to self-scrutiny in the place of self-expression.” ~ The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

So I gave her approach a try. What did I have to lose? I sat down and wrote whatever came to mind. ALL of it. I captured EVERY detail on the page, even the ones that didn’t make sense. And then the next day, I did it again. I wrote down every word of the story that came to mind, every single word.

After I had the entire story on the page, after it was all written down, I changed hats and started editing. And what happened? Those little details that seemed random at the time made the story work.

Those impertinent details turned out to be the answers the story needed. I just needed to give myself permission to write them down.