No. 2: How I Write

Everyone has their own process — and mine is particularly… weird

A little about how I write, because it’s unusual and I don’t recommend it to anyone. But somehow, against all odds, it works for me.

I have a general outline of how the novel is going to work, but it’s — well, to call it loose would be an understatement.

For this new novel, I have the following prompts on post-its, sitting next to my screen.

HOUSE

KILL

NUKE

That’s pretty much my outline. Beginning, middle, and end.

(I’d love to hear what you think this novel is about, based on that. If I wasn’t myself and I was guessing, I’d think I was writing a sequel to Oppenheimer.)

Back to the outline. There’s a reason why it’s so flimsy. If I try to get any more details, my brain simply won’t give them to me. I suspect it’s for two reasons. First, because my mind thinks that the fun of writing is in the discovery, and to know everything before I start would make me feel more like a plumber than a writer (and I’m not sociable enough to be a plumber). Second, I think if I can predict the whole story ahead of time, then so can the reader. To prevent this and to really surprise the audience, I need to experience the twists and turns of the story in real-time. I think that’s why the twists that came out of the School for Good and Evil series were often so shocking — because I was living them out as I wrote them.

One twist in Book 5 involving an animal (true SGE fans are nodding their heads) made me blink at my screen, before I turned to no one and said out loud: “Excuse me. What?”

Also in Book 5, I found myself starting a chapter in first-person point of view, where all previous 3000 pages of the series had been in third-person omniscient. It made zero sense at the time to change point of view and was surely against every writing rule… but I know better than to question the magical elves doing the work. In the end, it was a special chapter in the series that really did deserve its own voice.

There’s a surrender to all of it, and surrender is important in life, especially for those of us who are type-A, overly neurotic control freaks, of which I am an OG. Which is why I suspect my brain works this way. It’s work and therapy at the same time, teaching me to trust a deeper force than my conscious self. Maybe that’s why at the end of a day’s writing, I feel more unified and whole and filled up. Because I’ve given myself over to the truest essence of me, beyond my superego and my will and mind.

And yet, despite all of this being a spiritually satisfying way of working… it is also frightening. Honestly, all I had when I started this new novel was: House Kill Nuke. That was the entirety on which I was basing my post-SGE career. I prayed for more, but nothing came. Yes, I suppose I should be thankful for an idea and the very, very high-level architecture… but truth is, I’m jumping off a cliff every time I start a chapter, having no real idea where I’m going.

And yet, day after day, I show up, like I did for 10 years with SGE and also no details and also no net… and somehow the writing happens. After about 2 weeks, I usually have a draft of a chapter (somewhere between 3000-4000 words). Then I spend another 7-10 days polishing it. By polishing, I mean I read it over and over, developing characters and emotions and moments, making it feel real, real, real, until it’s a clean, little pearl. A story within a story, with a beginning, middle and end, and its own mini-themes. Every chapter in one of my books is its own microcosm, complete with a character’s specific wants, their emotional arc, and a climactic event (more about these things in entries to come).

But now we have a problem.

Because if I just string pearls together, it makes for a lovely necklace… and an awful novel. A novel needs unity and flow and a synthesis that guides you through a whole, no matter how exhilarating the individual parts. Without that unity, a novel feels empty and forgettable somehow, even if you enjoy the read.

So here’s where I do something hellish to myself.

Every time I finish a chapter… I go back and re-edit it with all the chapters before.

I write Chapter 1.

Then I write and polish Chapter 2… and edit and polish 1 and 2 together.

Then I write and polish Chapter 3… and edit and polish 1 and 2 and 3 together.

And on and on, until I get to the very end.

The plus is that when I get to the final chapter, I have a nearly finished book.

The minus of this process is… well, the sheer work. 

I’m doing full revisions of the novel after every single chapter.

It’s madness.

But it’s my way.

In doing it like this, I can build the novel, less as a string of pearls, and more as bricks laying foundation. I can mastermind and hide easter eggs and weave a fabric together that doesn’t feel episodic or random, but rather like a propulsive engine that carries you through. There is the side effect of perhaps reading the book too many times and not being able to see things clearly – but that’s where you trust your editor to have fresh eyes. Trust. Surrender. These words will come up again and again in this diary. And perhaps that’s the lesson of the day. Because writing is like breathing and it will happen if we let it and stay out of the way and don’t resist too much. That’s why, for many of us, writing feels just as powerful as breathing in keeping us alive. In both cases, despite our valiant efforts to harness it, it’s a force beyond our control — and a reminder that there is magic in life, things we can’t understand, if we’re humble enough to trust and surrender.

I’m curious if you have any idiosyncratic ways of organizing your writing. Tell me in the comments, so I can marvel at how strange and beautiful each of our creative selves can be.