As you may have noticed, January’s posts are mostly about motivation and discipline, a theme I will continue through February. Whatever projects you have planned for this year, I desperately want you to succeed! So, I have compiled some of my favorite tips, enabling you to develop a good framework for writing.

Because I am a plotter, not a pantser, I will be focusing on plotting rather than going at it willy-nilly. This is just my opinion and my process, so some things may not apply to you; take what you like and leave the rest.

Plotting

When plotting, you are not coming up with a play-by-play; that is the outline. People often confuse the two when writing, which leads to them getting overwhelmed.

With a plot, you only care about these components:

• The inciting event
• The MC’s goal
• The climax
• The end

You can think of your plot as the elevator pitch you’d give to someone when explaining your story; it is a general overview of the piece.

Now we can move on to the outline, where we figure out how to go from inciting event -> summit -> end.

Outlining

Outlines are tricky because if you add too much detail, then you get demotivated. I like to come up with a very long outline, which contains everything I want to have in there, and then drastically cut it down to my actual planning document I use while guiding my work.

When I am outlining, I do not always use chapters, unless I am 100% certain that I will have exactly that many chapters. Instead, I organize things by different scenes.

Sometimes it’s possible to use chapters; for example, if I have dual POVs and am switching back and forth every chapter, then the amount of chapters I have is mostly locked in. But if you’re doing a single POV, you may find you need more or less than you expected.

Anyway, you’ll start with these main components:

• Beginning
• Inciting event
• Climax
• End

Then you start building in brief summaries of each part after that. Once you have a basic understanding of each scene that will be included, it’s time to develop your draft.

Titling Sections

I like to start out with headers for each section or scene, as this helps me know what I will need to work on.

It’s easy to forget that your first draft is not your final draft and you do not have to use “Chapter 1,” etc when doing it. In fact, I discourage this, because you may very well find you need more chapters, and then you get yourself confused.

Instead, consider using descriptive headers and organizing things by scene when you are writing.

This is an example of what I am talking about, from the first draft of the sixth part of the Eirenic Verses series, Poesy.

Those are the “titles” of each chapter. Once I was actually done with the book, I went in and fixed these headers into actual chapters.

This method is helpful because of what I will discuss next (writing out of order) and because it helps ensure that you’re staying on track with your plot points.

If I have already done most of the writing and then realized that I need a new chapter, I make a new header, highlight the “Chapter” part, and then add a comment reminding me of what this scene needs to include.

I do not highlight the number of the chapter, because I may very well find that I need another chapter before this one. Then I’d have to renumber it, nuking my comment in the process.

In general, I try to keep all sections within about 200-500 words of each other (depending on how long the chapters are), unless there’s an extremely good reason for a given chapter to be much shorter than the others.

This helps the reader know what to expect and how to pace themselves when they are reading. If they’re just about to go to bed and say “one more chapter,” and then that chapter ends up being twice as long as the others, they might be a bit annoyed.

Writing Out of Order

Sometimes you are stuck on a section for whatever reason; maybe you’re not feeling it, maybe you need more research, maybe you’re not quite sure where you’re heading with it. And that’s fine! Just don’t let it demotivate you.

Write what part you’re most excited about when you are most excited about it.

I usually write the beginning, the climax, and the end first. Then, I add the “sub-climaxes:” those smaller sections of tension, like a fight scene or whatever.

After that, I stitch them all together with the downtime scenes, which will have a bit of momentum but a slower pace.

In many cases, a downtime scene is combined with a moment of tension to make a full chapter.

Getting Started by Section

If I am very stuck on a particular section and just can’t get myself to do it, I tell myself to write 200 words in the section, and if I’m still not feeling it, then I can stop and do another part, or give up for the day. In many cases, I end up continuing for a few more hundred words.

Even if I still give up on the section for the day, I have given myself to something to work on when I pick it back up again: I am not confronted with a blank page with no understanding of what I am supposed to do next.

Sometimes, if I am really, really stuck, I’ll stop writing right in the middle of a sentence, which gives me an even stronger anchor when I’m ready to continue.

Using Google/Word Comments While Working

Google or Word comments are an immensely helpful tool while you are working, as they help remind you of things that you know you need to add but don’t feel like doing right in the moment.

They don’t have to be very long either, just enough to tell you that you still have some more work to do on this part.

Then, as you finish, you can either delete them or resolve them, depending on whether you want to remember what you had to fix. I tend to delete them, as resolved comments can still be visible on a completed Word doc when I send it to a beta reader.

Tools for Motivation

Word Count Spreadsheet. Keeping track of your work every day helps build intrinsic motivation and encourages you to keep going, even on days where you don’t feel like working.

StimuWrite. Essentially it gamifies writing for you.

Pomodoro Method. You’ve probably heard of this already so I won’t belabor the point, but it makes you work in 25-minute-ish chunks where you do nothing but what you’re meant to be doing. Because I use Cold Turkey, I don’t tend to need it, but sometimes I’m really, really distracted, and then I will put a timer on to keep myself honest.

Tools for Concentration

Cold Turkey. I don’t see this get mentioned a lot by writers and I’m not sure why, as I literally use it every single day of my life. It blocks whatever websites you shouldn’t be looking at so that you can focus on your work.

Binaural Beats. While binaural beats aren’t some Hail Mary thing that makes you into a super genius, they can be helpful sometimes. You can find lots of versions of binaural beats on YouTube or your favorite music playing app.

Tools for Revision

Sensory Readable. Listening to your text read out loud makes it so much easier to catch typos, weird grammar, or using the same word too many times in quick succession. Microsoft Read Aloud is free with Microsoft 365 and works great, but you can’t adjust word pronunciations, which is why I like Readable for fantasy writing. It comes with an editor where you can spell out pronunciations so that they sound right when spoken. This program is a $150 lifetime license fee.

ProWritingAid. I will say that since I have started using ProWritingAid more frequently, I don’t find as much value in it anymore, especially with the critique feature. They changed it recently so that it’s not quite as thorough. Still, if you’re a newer writer, you can definitely find benefit in its suggestions, particularly the “Inspiration” element. It is also good for letting you see an immediate overview of problems so you can just click on them and fix them all at once. I also like its sensory feature so I remember to actually add all five senses to my work.

Beta Readers. Yes, of course, beta readers are very helpful. But you need to find good ones! Fiverr can be a good resource. I have curated a group of three or four great beta readers who I send my projects to. While expensive, I have found much better results this way.

However, I know not everyone has the means to spend that much money on beta reading, so build a writing community and find some great writers you admire. Ask those good writers if they would be willing to take a look at your work; they may say no, but there’s no harm in asking.

I have found r/betareaders to be hit or miss. A lot of the beta readers on there are inexperienced and give awful advice.

Writing is hard. If it wasn’t, then every single person on Earth would be a writer. However, the hardest part isn’t the worldbuilding, the plot, or the characterization: it’s just getting started. If you master that, then you’re well on your way to writing a book that everyone will adore.