I have often heard when I began introducing my book to the world from community of lover’s of books that heart felt expressed dream:

“You know I always wanted to be a writer.”

“I have to tell a story but I can’t seem to find the time to write. I’m just to busy.” 

I know logically from experience that being a writer is part volunteer action of the mind and part of one’s nature’s compulsion to use words, stories and construction of ideas into written form.  At least from my experience and the study I’ve done on successful writers and moderates who just have that literary itch that begs to be scratched. Simple, if you wanted to write a story, nothing in this world would keep you from doing it.

However,  the question drives me to answer it in a practical way. There are systems that writer’s employ to get their ideas/stories out of their heads and then present them all into a clear form and timely matter.

I’m not going to get every system just to keep this post short. I will present my system. Though not the best it’s what works for me.

I start out with a general outline in my head where I detail the beginning, middle and end and chapter headings if I’m inclined to do. I use the outline as a map of sorts to keep my mind focused on where I am and where I’m going. Some times I have to write it out just keep my mind focused sometimes I just have the map in my head set. Honestly though, I end up writing it out because my mind some times can’t keep on the subject or single map at a time.

Okay with my map in hand I have to figure out if this is a short story map (20,000 to 50,000 words) or a novella map (50,000 to 60,000 words). I’m not worrying about the word count because I know I need at least 198 to 300 pages. I prefer to write short stories and short novella books partly because I’m some times in a rush get the story written so I can read it and partly because I’m getting older and if I don’t get the story out of my head I’ll forget it or major details about it later.

When I began to write stories I found the faster way to get a first draft done was to write it out by hand in a notebook each chapter as it came to me. I like characters in stories  more then the settings of the stories and I hear the dialog in my head and write conversations out as it comes. The conversations are like a string to me that leads me from one setting to another until I get to the end of the story. Currently, I just use my Notebook computer as my notebook or Note Text Document but occasionally I have a need to use my hand to write because it’s a relaxing way to keep my thoughts in the motion of writing and not think about the 300 pages or how many words I need to have down on the page or computer document. The beautiful scale of editing always adds in more pounds to the completed work.

My advice: Keep focused and keep writing in whatever way makes it easy for you. Don’t worry about plot or page counts until the first draft is completed.

My chapters aren’t long but I add in a lot of them into a book. In the second drafting I begin to read over the story I see some details missing or questions that need answering with another chapter or I need to delete a sentence or two that doesn’t make sense for a character’s motives or personality.  I could go on but in a elementary view point this is my system for writing a story.

L M. Parker.