Writers of Quarantine

Hello Universe,

With recent events and a certain virus sweeping our so called ‘social’ lives out form under us, allot of us have taken up new hobbies, or revisited old ones.

One of my hobbies that I’ve loved since I was a tiny tot is creative writing. I love reading and escaping the reality of the world under the influence of words from authors like C.C. Hunter, Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling, Veronica Roth and many more influential writers. But sometimes you can’t read the books about particular stories… mainly because they haven’t been written yet. So following a saying I heard about four years ago “Write the stories you want to read”.

When I start a new story, or whenever I’m writing one, I like to follow a process I call ‘The skeletal steps’. It goes like this:

1. Start with the basics

a. Things you need in the story should be planned ahead before you start writing. Things like characters, their backgrounds, what they look like, their relevance in the story and any other crucial moments in the worlds history.

b. After the main group of characters and any defining characters or historic elements have been written down somewhere I know I’m going to remember it, then I start writing.

2. Start writing

a. Begin writing your story in order (Prologue, chapter one, chapter two, etc.) if there are any part that you write which belong later on in the story write them down on another piece of paper (or another digital document if you’re writing on computer) because you could use it later. Anything you don’t write down you are very likely to forget.

3. Go back and edit

a. Even if you are a goddess in the English department you’re bound to have made a mistake, which hey you’re only human. At this stage you go back over what you have done so far (you don’t have to have completed a full novella series, but if you have… well good for you speedy McGee) and check your spelling, grammar, plot line, and remove any extra of waffle sections, unless someone is eating a waffle and it’s important for the plot development.

4. Fluff it up and re-edit

a. Add all the sparkles that your twilight fanfic deserves. A story in the beginning phases will have sections which re-reading over you will notice need more or less. Here’s the part to describe just how wonderful the protagonists’ eyes looked in the mirror, or how cold the snow felt on the tip of her nose. Go crazy, but not too crazy.

b. At this stage you should also give your writing out for someone else to read, (Two or more people) a fresh perspective always helps. With something you’ve written your brain will more often than not, auto read it as what you intended to wright instead of how is needs to be.

5. Re-edit

a. After getting some feedback write it down in a notebook or in somewhere similar to where you wrote about your characters and plot developments. Then re-edit your story with the feed-back where you see necessary.

6. Repeat

a. Repeat steps 2-5 until you have a finished, edited story which you aren’t ashamed to show.

The above steps also work with general writing, like with non-fiction assessments, blogs or just general day to day writing.

You’re probably wondering why I call this the ‘Skeletal steps’, well I like to think of building a story like building a person. You need to start with a frame (or skeleton) because everything needs support (step one). Next comes the muscles and ligaments which hold the frame (or skeleton) together and allow it to move (to some degree, step 2). Next comes the skin, everything begins to look pretty, and less like a husk (step 3). Finally you need all the pretty stuff; hair, freckles, fancy nails and any other defining features which will turn your skeleton into a Hollywood runway model (steps 4-6).

Sorry for the gruesome analogy folks, but that’s just what I think of when I’m writing. It helps to have a guide, like how persuasive writing essays or exam-inspired rambles use the ‘hamburger’ strategy, well my ‘skeletal steps’ can work right along side it.

If you have any writing tips that you want to share or anything you want me to edit (keep in mind I’m no English teacher) then feel free to get in contact with me, there’s links on the Life In The Shadows web-page or email me at theshadowgirl16@gmail.com. Also I could use some feedback on what you want to hear about on the weekly rambles, so anything you want featured will be written about if I can.

Until next time, stay foxy folks.

The Shadow Girl, Fading Out xx