When I first began writing my story I had an idea for the first few chapters but it was just one big mess. When I came back to it in 2018, I made an outline of what I wanted to happen. My outline wasn’t very detailed. I had the order of the charms Akane had to collect and what challenges came with them and the battle between her and Diederik, but that was it. I used my outline to keep me on track of the main plot, but I came up with subplots as I wrote.
I will give credit to a friend of mine for helping me when I became stuck a few times. There were also a few moments in the story that my husband had influenced. They both gave me ideas I could use, I picked the ones I wanted and manipulated them to fit the story.
When I first wrote this story in 2008, I had it in first person. Akane was the one telling the story, but the more I wrote it out the more I wanted to give the perspective of other characters. When I came back to it later on I changed it to a narrative telling / third person. It worked better for me than in first person. I had someone suggest to me to make it a first person telling but I would change it back. I was happy with the finished product.
During the writing process, I had a goal when writing. I would try to write at least a thousand words a day. Some days were just on the mark, others were over the mark, and some didn’t touch it but I had gotten a few words down. I also scheduled in time to write. Tuesdays and Thursdays were full on writing days. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I would clean the house first and then write. Saturday and Sunday where days I would write too but sometimes I didn’t because my family was home and I would keep it open to do stuff with them.
What I would write on deepened on where I was at the time and what I was doing. If I was home, it was mostly on the computer but if I had to leave it, then I would use my phone. Outside the house I would use my phone or now recently my laptop. I also keep a pocket notebook on hand anytime, just in case. My planner notebook was what I wrote in the most. It held my outline and random ideas I had down. I would sometimes write down my ideas in the notebook first just to see if I liked it enough to put into google docs.
Now that you know my methods, I would love to hear your methods for writing a story.