rj_anderson | Are you an Intuitive or a Sensing Writer?

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Are you an Intuitive or a Sensing Writer?

Over the past year or so I've been giving a lot of thought to my own writing processes, including trying some other writers' tried-and-proven methods for generating first drafts, revisions, and so on more efficiently.

Some of this has been for good, but most for ill, I'm afraid. I found out the hard way that if I think too much about what I'm doing as I write, I end up paralyzed. Writing for me is like walking a tightrope: the only way I can do it is to keep myself focused on the destination and not allow myself to look at my feet (or worse, that yawning pit below where things like sagging middles, cardboard characters, and inconsistent worldbuilding lurk).

It seems to me that a lot of writing how-to books and articles are really geared toward Sensing writers: they all depend on the idea of being able to break your book down into parts, or categories, or different threads, and systematically work your way through that particular method until all your narrative ducks are in a row and you have a finished book. And this is a perfectly valid way to work, it can result in some very excellent books, and those who are comfortable with this approach are often much better at turning out novels and stories on a regular basis, so I'm certainly not going to knock it.

However, I've come to realize that I am just not a Sensing writer, and step-by-step breakdowns of how to write (or revise) only make me panic. I get overwhelmed by the sheer number of steps involved, the seeming complexity of all the individual parts that have to go into making the book work, and worst of all the many, many things that could be wrong with every scene I write -- and I can no longer see the story at that point, or enjoy the writing process any more.

When I write (or even revise), I don't break it down into sections or layers -- I do everything at once as I go along. Style, characterization, plot, setting: I go over and over each paragraph until it has all the parts my story seems to need, and then I go on to the next paragraph. And when I get a brilliant new idea for where to take the story, I go back to what I wrote before, and touch it up so the seams don't show. Which means that by the time I get around to typing THE END, it may be six or eight or even twelve months after I started, but what I have is a fairly decent draft that only needs a bit of polishing before it's ready to share with my critique group or my editor.

It's a method I could never break down into steps and describe, because it's all intuitive -- I just feel my way through the book, adding a dash of this here and a pinch of that there, and tasting as I go along. There is no recipe, and if I try to follow somebody else's recipe I just end up unhappy and frustrated. And through the painful process of trying other methods and failing to make them work for me, I have come to understand that I am an Intutive and not a Sensing writer.

So I've had to stop reading many of the writing how-to articles and blogs I used to frequent. I have no doubt they contain a lot of useful and important information, but that isn't how I personally learn and grow as a writer. I have to just jump in to writing and flounder around and tackle projects that are stupidly ambitious without realizing how ambitious they are, and make my mistakes as I go along and then have them pointed out to me by readers more objective than myself -- looking at the specific context of a book I personally wrote, that's when I learn.

What about you? Do you intuitively hold the whole book and all its parts in your head as you write, and discover its strengths and weaknesses as you go along? Or do you break it down into smaller parts or drafts, outlines, step-by-step methods, charts, and the like to help you get the job done?

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I'm definitely more intuitive. In fact, I have to truly hold the majority of the story in my head before I ever start typing -- that includes the story arc, the mc's emotional arc, the ending -- the whole shebang. I will add twists and turns as I write, usually whenever I feel the story begin to drag...but the books that I feel are my most solid started in my head, completely together and ready to go.

For me, that also means my first drafts are quite fast -- my current WIP will be done in less than three weeks -- and my NaNo books tend to be some of my best, because of the thinking I do beforehand. Interesting topic here :)

Though I am an outliner by nature, I think of myself as more intuitive overall -- for me, the two things don't seem to be that separate. I break it down into an outline AND I discover strengths and weaknesses as I go along. And honestly, I suspect most writers dwell in the middle of that continuum. Obviously the "how to" books are going to concentrate on the stuff they actually can explain how to do; the intuitive elements are important to most writers, I think, but they really can't be taught. (Save through extensive reading, IMHO.)

Yeah, I'm more in this camp. I have a kernel of an idea, so I start out by writing 1-3 of the most emotionally-resonant scenes. If that seems to work, I step back and outline a bit, to see how the characters got to the scene and where they go afterward. Then I start filling in chunks here and there. I usually write the bits I'm most interested in writing first, and the less-interesting bits become interesting later, because they become opportunities to creatively stitch the most interesting bits together. I edit style, characterization, plot, and setting all at once. My husband is always trying to tell me to separate content from presentation, but it's really hard for me to do that, because working on them both at the same time is the only way to make sure it all works together smoothly.

RJ, this is a great post. I never really thought of it this way before, but it makes perfect sense. I'm the same way - I just write it out and then go back later and smooth out the wrinkles, spice up characters and scenes, things like that. I am generally an analytical person, but with writing, it just has to flow. I can't look at my work and break it into plot, setting, etc. or it starts to get all Frankensteined on me!

The most I do on that front is to complete a character questionnaire on each major character before I start, and that helps me figure out who these people are, which informs the plot. I might do a quick outline, too, but that's mostly so I don't screw up dates or timing ("how can this guy drink coffee on Monday if he died on Sunday?" etc.). But overall, I try to let the writing take me where it may and hope that I've captured everything I intended - hope that I've told a good story.

I think it depends on the project. Some I've ended up outlining a lot, others just write themelves. (I call them white fire projects, and I love those--it's sheer story channeling.) But some of those very systematic methods just depress me because I can be mechanical about it all. I don't have a math mind, and though maybe I could be a better writer if i could consciously include plan thematic loop scenes and classic sequels and so forth, so on, I just can plan that way. I'd never get anything done, because the magic would be gone, leaving me with bits of paper scattered all over the desk. (As for themes, I hated identifying them as a kid, and if I thought I was writing to a theme I'd toss the mess into the trash.)

I call them white fire projects, and I love those--it's sheer story channeling.

Oh yes! I love it when that happens. What a great way of putting it: "white fire". It's like you get struck by lightning with an idea, and it fizzes until you write it all down.

Yes! *g*

(I call them white fire projects, and I love those--it's sheer story channeling.)

Those really are the best. Better than drugs. Not that I would know, but I can't imagine controlled substances provide a high that's any better than channeling the lightening like that. *grin*

And I should add to my comment further down that with me, as with Sherwood, the process really does depend on the project. I tend to work a certain way, but some stories demand a different approach. I'm writing a time-travel story right now that I've had to obsessively outline and re-outline and write up timelines for each character and keep perfect track of dates and all kinds of other prep work that i would normally never bother with, otherwise I'd never get the thing written in anything like a coherent fashion.

It's interesting, I think I'm a little of both. Mostly I'm what you're calling a sensing writer--I have trouble seeing the big picture, and need to break it down into chapter-by-chapter outlines, and various drafts, before I get everything working properly. But at the same time, I figure out a lot of the other stuff--how to develop characters, and pace the story, and all that stuff, intuitively. I've never found formulas for that sort of thing very helpful. So I sort of... intuitively outline? ;)

I think I'm kinda in the middle. When I just write by the seat of my pants I find all sorts of problems with my plot and stuff that requires a full rewrite. So I've found that if I get an overall plot summary written and then write a few character-driven plot summaries as well, then I can keep the big picture in mind while I write the scenes. Individual scenes I tend to only have a basic idea of before I start writing. So my scenes tend to write themselves. I also edit as I go, unable to move on until I'm happy with what I've already got. As new ideas/epiphanies come, I go back and make the changes right then. So when I finish a draft, I don't have oodles of editing/revisions to do. I did try to make a scene chart for my current wip but four scenes into the story, I totally disregarded the chart and did something different. Now I only use it as reference for key events.

(As I take a break from transcribing the novel I'm still in the process of hand-writing...) I'd definitely put myself in the Intuitive Writer camp. I've never liked outlining. It just makes me grumpy and frustrated as I try to pull in the pieces that I knew were out there in the creative ether before I started, but must now be pin down on a sheet of paper and followed slavishly. Or so I end up feeling by the time the outline's done. On the other hand, I probably have a very general outline in my head.

I agree with

robinellen to some degree in that I have to know the general plot and, most importantly for me, the ending if I'm going to write something I ever plan on finishing. Otherwise I just have a bunch of scenes that I wanted to see realized on the page that subsequently fizzle out into nothing.

I'm more intuitive; I write pretty much the way you describe. For long fics I have a bullet-point outline and then I go straight to the first draft.

I can't write fiction worth beans. But you already know that.

Regards,
Shawn

I do have a "math mind" as someone above said. I do have to work out the plot beforehand, even though I don't necessarily write it down as a full outline. But I often write notes. That isn't to say that I figure everything out beforehand, that would be boring. And a detailed plot outline may not always be helpful anyway, because while plotting is my strong suit, I'm also very much of the school of thought that "character is plot" (points at icon you made for me 8-)). This can mean that I can get to a particular scene and getting to the character reactions, the nitty-gritty details, and realize that the character-motivation doesn't work, and that that's a plot hole. Then I have to stop and resolve that before I can go on, but I don't think I would have been able to even see the problem with a detailed outline, because it isn't until I'm actually in the middle of the story that I can see everything that's going on.

The process for me seems to be:
- get an idea
- figure out a goal/end for the story
- figure out how to get from Point A to Point B; make notes (but not a full outline)
- start writing from scene 1
- write more notes as I go, including snippets of future scenes (usually bits of dialogue)
- if I find a problem with the plot when writing a scene, wrestle with it and make notes of the resolution
- if need be, go back and insert stuff that needs to be inserted into earlier scenes to fix the plot hole
- continue writing scene N to the end.

Edited 2008-04-27 23:32 (UTC)

I think yahtzee is right, creativity invariably dwells somewhere between the lines of the process anyway. (Interestingly enough, my Writer's Craft teacher in HS was all about 'just writing everything down' and sorting it out through various drafts later.)

As much fiction as I've managed to get written does seem to be mostly along the same intuitive lines as you describe - once I get a plot roughed out, anyway. I have to have faith in where I'm going before I can start; after that the rest just flows along, guided by a sort of movie of the scene that runs thru my head. I poke and tweak the wording until it matches up with what I'm 'seeing', then move on to the next scene.

I'm probably the oddball in the group, as I write non-fiction. Non-fiction is of course much more suited to the analytical, make-an-outline sort of writing. And as I'm writing basically in the field of history, the routine (as I've learned in the class Craft of the Historian at the University of North Florida) is

Seek out the primary sources, note all of them down
Seek out the secondary sources, note all of them down
Examine the primary sources for material relevant to your topic
ditto the secondary
Sift through the available information and formulate your thesis
Drill down into the primary and secondary sources that pertain most to your thesis
Make notes
Write!

So it isn't intuitive much at all, as a process.

However, intuition has a place even in historical research, as you begin to develop your thesis and put together those facts that either support it or refute it. You begin to see connections and patterns, and may have to revise your thesis as you develop the facts.

Me, I find it interesting.

But then I like sitting in libraries looking at arcane old documents. And in fact, I'm getting ready to go to Spain for two months to sit in an archive looking at very arcane documents -- in 16th century Spanish.

John Scalzi says he's much the same way. His final draft requires very little touch-up work because he's worked so much through the writing process.

What I've found to be the most successful for me was to write a 38K word treatment of the story, mostly in the present tense with all action and no character development. I did this with Nino, spending a few hours/days between the sections and facing down the obvious plot holes and twists. When I started the full novel writing, I changed a lot of stuff, added characters, but had a pretty sound rough draft that's mostly stood up to the first beta read and is now in the second.

You write *exactly* the same way I do! :D

That's interesting! And it's encouraging that you can actually write novels that way, because one of the things that's kept me from tackling a long form is that I do seem to have the complete story in my head before I write it. And yet actually writing a story is always a process of discovery.

I was thrilled when I came across a piece of software called Scrivener that enables (and actually encourages) writing longer pieces in complete scenes. That works for me, at least so far, because I can work on the novels-in-progress the way I do on the short stories - just write the scenes I have as complete units, and then piece them together like a quilt. As to revising, the best advice I ever came across was Brenda Ueland's. If something seems false when you reread, she said, you probably haven't imagined it deeply enough. I need to listen for the characters' voices and try to understand what these people would actually do in a given situation, and then set down as simply as possible what I see and hear.

But I really struggle with long pieces, and it's inspirational that a writer as intuitive as you are has been able to handle the novel form so well, because I'm not at all sure I can. Interestingly, of the two longer stories I'm working on, the one that I've done the most on - and that has changed the most in the writing - is the one where I had a clear picture of the complete story before I started.

My process tends to be a lot like yours; I always have an outline, even if it's only a few bullet points in my head, but other than that, I don't do a lot of organized prep work. I generally just go into a scene or a section thinking "Okay, in this scene I need to accomplish these things," and the list is usually something like "Make it clear that Janet has a much stronger relationship with her grandmother than with her parents. Say who's going to be sleeping in the bed by the door. Have Tristan say something funny." But for the most part, I'm just writing what comes to my while I'm typing. Most of my stories are roughly 80% stuff that hit once I started typing, to 20% outlines stuff I knew I was putting in ahead of time.

I like your writing-as-cooking metaphor, esp. the bit about tasting as you go along, because that's exactly how it feels to me. Needs more pepper. Too much celery. And I tend to cook kind of the way I write, if you bear this metaphor out (using the recipe as a jumping-off point rather than as a strict order of exactly what to do) so that amused me, too.

I write in a very similar way, too. I do lots of thinking before I start writing, but very little in the way of notes or outlining (i.e. no outlining at all!). I did make a collage for my current wip, and that's been surprisingly helpful.

Otherwise, I just start writing and try to layer in as much as possible as I go along - setting, description, etc. - so that there won't be many subsequent drafts. I *do* still manage to write pretty quickly, but that's just because I'm lucky enough to be able to type super-fast. :)

(here from su_herald)

Hmm. I'm not sure what I am.

I certainly write basic outlines, but they're very basic. And once I start writing, I generally write lots of random sentences from all over the place, with absolutely no regard to what order they're going to go in - they're just sentences that feel like they should be in there somewhere.
Then I put them into Word, and cut and paste until I'm happy with the approximate order. Then I fill in the gaps...

I've never heard anyone break it down this way, but that's an interesting way to look at it. I think I'm somewhere in the middle, maybe? I don't outline much, but I also don't stop and edit myself much while I write. I just go forward until I hit a wall, and then I look back at what I've written to see why the wall is there, tweak stuff, and move on.

I'm some weird kind of hybrid. My original work is pretty much all Fantasy, and I do some fairly exhaustive world building. I have a character sheet that is in the vicinity of 25 pages long that I fill out for each and every character (major characters very early, and more minor characters as they pop up), so in many ways I do the layering step-by-step thing.

On the other hand, I rarely have more than a basic idea of where I want the story to go. I know my people and my world very well, and let that lead me through the plot.

Also, the entire thing comes out in that first writing. Subplots and twists are written as I get to them. I know many how-to books say that you shouldn't mess with subplots until after you've finished the main plot, or that you should know every twist in advance. I don't do this. I tried once, and I just got lost in the minutiae of the plotting. I get bored with it, and frankly, the writing that I do isn't as good as my usual work.

Interesting topic, that actually hits on one of my biggest issues with writing manuals and classes. They assume that works for one writer, works for all writers. That's just not the case. We're all different. It's not important that we follow this formula or that formula. It's just important that we find a method that works for us and then do it.

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