I should say specifically my creation process as I’m sure everyone has there own steps that they go through from conception to workable idea. I’ve been wanting to put this to paper for the longest time just to compare how other author’s go about creating their works. I often wonder if everyone has similar steps if the way I go about writing is just wildly different.

The first step is quite simply the idea. These ideas start in a variety of ways; sometimes a dream, other times sparked from a conversation, or inspired by something I’ve read/watched/played. The one unifying factor of my ideas is that they have to stick with me. For Haven Lost, the idea came from a conversation with a friend years ago about colonizing other planets. I would give more details, but I don’t want to spoil my own novel before I’ve even finished it.

Step two is to nurture the idea. After I’ve dwelled on an idea or concept for a while, I start pulling at it mentally and shaping it into something more than just a mental image. This is usually accomplished through driving and listening to music (specifically Two Steps from Hell – they make all that awesome orchestral music you hear in movie trailers). I drive around, turn the music up, and really start to create a story in my mind about the idea that I have. For me, the music is absolutely vital. I’ll write another post at some point about how important music is for everything in my life. Haven Lost was mostly shaped while listening to the album Skyworld.

Now I’ve got this idea roughly fleshed out in my head, from start to finish, the real work begins. I have a notebook that I use to outline my writing in. I start with characters, locations, and unique terminology. From there I start outlining chains of events, from start to finish, including specific important details. For example, if I already had a conversations between characters that I knew I wanted to include, I would write out the whole discussion in the outline. The outline for Haven Lost was roughly fifty or sixty pages if I remember correctly, with lots of crossing out and redoing. It was important in this stage to make mistakes! If part of the outline resulted in a narrative dead end, I would track back and cross out what was needed to change the direction into a more enjoyable avenue.

With the draft Outline complete, it is time to build the characters. This is an area that I struggled with for the longest time and the result was characters whose motivations and drives were all over the place and terribly inconsistent. In one of the courses at Southern New Hampshire University, we had to write a character sketch. Briefly describing who the character is, what their background is, what they look like, what they like, what they hate, lifestyle, and history. I cannot emphasize the importance of actually sitting down and doing this for a main character. While next to none of that sketch actually makes it into the final work, writing about your character is akin to getting to know them. It keeps them consistent and most of all makes them feel like a real person to both the reader and the author! I would also suggest giving the same love to your setting that you do to your characters. The more I write about the places and organizations that inhabit my works, the easier it is for me to navigate my characters through them.

At this point, with outline completed and characters and settings fleshed out, it is time to take the hardest but most important step: Start writing and keep writing. As for my writing process, that is a post for another day!

I would love to hear how other author’s come up with their ideas! Comment below!