This Is Why It Hurts The Way It Hurts. You Have Too Many Words In Your Head. There Are Too Many Ways

“This is why it hurts the way it hurts. You have too many words in your head. There are too many ways to describe the way you feel. You will never have the luxury of a dull ache. You must suffer through the intricacy of feeling too much.”

— Iain Thomas

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald  

“Socks are well-pressed, toenails are shortened, plushies are arranged according to size, expiration dates of the canned food are checked, days up to Christmas are counted, flowers are deadheaded … I guess, now must write.”

— Mimi Gaisser

Fed up with residing in Hell, one of the demons/ lost souls tries to escape

I have no idea if this will help anyone else, but here it is!

I write dialogue easily. like. I can toss out 1000 words of dialogue in an hour or less. mostly to outline how a scene or chapter plays out. but it comes naturally to me. it always has. I taught a creative writing class about it in high school. :D

description doesn’t come naturally for me. so the way I hack my writing process is:

Stage One: I outline with dialogue, because it comes easily for me.

“Character A speaking.”

“Character B speaking.”

“Character A speaking.”

Etc.

Stage Two: I go in with some brief descriptions and details, or things to remember such as:

“Character A speaking.”

“Character B speaking.”

[Character A definitely flips off Character B]

“Character A speaking.”

[Character B grins]

[they’re walking through the city and the sun is setting and they nearly get hit by a car yikes]

Stage Three: Then I go back through and start adding real descriptions and details to the conversations, and either reworking entire lines of dialogue, or deleting them if they’re not needed. 

Character A walked along the sidewalk, kicking at scattered pebbles as he gestured about how his day at work had been.

“And then she tossed a drink all over me!”

“She must have thought you were thirsty-”

Character A flipped Character B off, smacked him on the shoulder, and resumed his rant.

“Anyway-”

A flurry of motion and a loud honk tore through the calm between them, and they both jumped backward away from the car that nearly pulled itself up onto the sidewalk where they were.

“Hey, fuck off!”

“Sidewalks are for people!”

“And dogs!”

“And dogs!”

But writing dialogue first helps me set the pacing for the scene or chapter, see how characters interact, see how they work with each other, how they treat each other, it helps me simplify their interactions and the mood of what’s happening. 

I hope this helps someone out. I’ve tried to do the whole ‘write everything at once’, but having multiple stages of writing have helped lessen my stress and allowed me to have some breathing room for plot lines, and make pacing feel more natural and organic.

I didn't write a single word of any W.I.P. today.