In the sport of boxing, there is a famous quote: “Styles make the fight”. It is hardly worth watching the fight if no style is showcased. If the fight is boring. A similar idea (however slim) may be applied to the process of creative writing.
There are as many writing process styles as there are writers. While many share similarities with others, no one author can easily be fit into a box.
Nevertheless, it is important to know the basics of established practices before you create that new document.
For the sake of simplicity, I’ve narrowed millions of styles down to 4 overarching categories:
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Tarantino style
This one is the easiest to get into but probably the most difficult to maintain. Quentin Tarantino is famous among writers for his absolute dedication to the craft. When he writes, he posits that he needs no more than a legal pad, one black pen and one red pen. He buys this rudimentary equipment for a few reasons.
One, it makes the most difficult part of writing painfully easy - starting.
When a yellow, lined piece of paper is staring at you from your desk, there are no qualms about turning the computer on, checking the internet, making coffee, or whatever else. It’s right there. All you have to do is pick up the pen and start.
Furthermore, the lack of equipment makes it easier to blow through the first draft with minimum errors. He has famously said “with this pen, I will write Kill Bill”. When running out of ink is a genuine concern, you make sure the writing is good quality. After the first draft, he uses a red pen to edit, and that pretty much completes his manuscript.
Some theorize that he writes longhand because he never learned to type, but we’ll stick with the romantic idea.
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Peterson style
Jordan Peterson, a famous clinical psychologist and philosopher, had (and perhaps, still has), a notoriously rigorous writing routine.
Coming from a highly academic background, he approaches writing books similarly to writing a doctoral thesis. His choice of equipment, unlike Tarantino, is more technical. He advises 2 monitors, an ergonomic keyboard, and a fast mouse. He says that, if you will be spending hours in the same position doing the same thing, might as well make it as fast and comfortable as possible.
Dr. Peterson meticulously outlines everything. Idea by idea, chapter by chapter, down to the paragraphs. He has a map developed in his mind and on paper before he starts the first draft.
Once he has written the first draft, he ‘explodes’ the paragraph into sentences and words and removes any word that isn’t absolutely necessary to convey the idea. Then he rearranges the paragraph. Then the chapter.
Then he rewrites the draft from this new perspective. Then he does it all again. He has reported having written every word in his first book 12 times over.
This is not for the faint of heart, but if you are a workaholic with a burning desire to become the ultimate student of the craft, this one's for you.
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Sanderson style
What makes Brandon Sanderson stand out is the sheer volume of books he is capable of producing. During the COVID lockdown, when 2 of his books were being edited and published, he ‘accidentally’ wrote 4 more novels and a play. That kind of work capacity is record breaking (literally), and something average writers can only hope to produce in 5 years of focused work. He outpaced Stephen King in his prime, cocaine-fueled writing binges.
His advice is too plentiful to count, since he has multiple classes he taught in universities and are all published for free on YouTube here. But his basics are: Close yourself in your room. Don’t let anyone approach you. Focus on producing 5000 good quality words per week. A first draft should take you, on average 3 months, and never longer than a year.
Write only what you really want to write, get the damned thing on paper, and check the rules only when you edit.
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Tolkien style
Tolkien is the odd one out of all the above mentioned examples, and is a shining example of why you should not care about industry standards if you know what you’re doing and you’re enjoying it.
His magnum opus, the Lord of the Rings, reportedly took 14 years to complete. After he had finished the hobbit, he immediately set out to work on his next trilogy. However, the writing took place years before the Hobbit, as well.
The amount of worldbuilding he had created for his books is unprecedented. Nobody has been able to reproduce that level of effort and detail since. He has created 3 languages, a multiple millennia-spanning world history, intricate geography, politics and relations, and so much more.
Tolkien states the importance of always having a map for a fantasy world. If you do not know where your characters are, you will inevitably get lost.
If you are to follow Tolkien’s advice, you most probably do this as a passion project instead of a career.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Storytelling doesn’t always have to be commercial. Go back to when you were a kid and told weird stories in the dark with your friends. Make that map, draw that character, take your time to write as much or as little as you like. Enjoy the process, but be aware of the rules. Create a piece you would want to read, that hasn’t been written yet. And write it however you like - if only you finish it.
So there you have it, 4 wells to draw inspiration from. It is important to note that these should be taken only as such - sources of insight, not rules. You should play around with many styles and discover one for yourself, one which suits you best. There is no one right way to do it.
The only important thing is to do it.
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