Pre-Writing
Everybody thinks his daughter’s pretty special and has cornered the market on smarts and creativity, but it’s actually true of my daughter. Really. She reads like no kid her age outside the Guinness Book of World Records and has a memory I really envy. Her ability to use context to understand the essential meanings of big words she has no real business knowing is dazzling. From time to time, she’ll go on little writing jags. After getting a kitty for Christmas, she decided to write a little story from the cat’s perspective, homing in on things like how funny it is to the cat that these strange people prepare a box for her to potty in and so on.
My wife volunteers once a week in my daughter’s second-grade class, and yesterday she texted me a photo of a page she had found hidden in my daughter’s desk. The page was from a journal we had given her on whose cover she has written dire warnings to keep out and drawn protective chains. So of course my wife looked.
The page in question was one of apparently many many pages of pre-writing for a story-in-progress including things like character sketches, plot summaries, important notes about relationships among the characters, and explanations of things key to the underlying mythology of the story (e.g. “sirens are like evil mermaids”). As a seven-year-old, she’s doing things she’s never been taught to do that I’m often not disciplined enough to do with my own writing as an adult who’s been exposed to such exercises.
I could go on all day about my daughter and the likelihood of her rise to fame in the belles lettres, but this blog is supposedly about providing tips, tricks, inspiration, and discussion to help the readers get to writing. So I’ll put to you a question: What kind of pre-writing do you do, if any, and how important is it to your process as a writer?
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Very timely questions. Just this Wednesday, I published a post on “How to… Create and Use an Effective Outline” and plan on writing about “How to… Create and Use a Web,” two of my favorite pre-writing strategies. (Actually, outlines are my favorites but my youngest uses webs a lot, and I like them for that reason.) Think I might also write about “talking it out” as a strategy since this works so well for my oldest son. I also like making notes in my idea book or a list on Evernote. When I was an English teacher years ago, I stressed the importance of finding a pre-writing strategy that worked well for each individual, and I still believe in that today. Pre-writing is so important because it keeps me focused and helps me not feel overwhelmed. When I have my ideas already jotted down, I can then focus on one point at a time and not worry about forgetting the others. I use pre-writing for more than just writing too; I use it for creating lessons and studies and for talking to my husband and my kids. Like I said, very timely topic.
Oh, the little children…we can always learn from them
For years I have done most of my pre-writing in my head. Unlike your daughter, my memory is faulty, so unless I rework the idea and get it down quickly, I will forget it. The process definitely has advantages but I think the list of draw-backs is larger. I’ve started a separate private blog to draft now (to avoid the pit of the forgotten ideas), and that’s working out better. For me, the pre-writing is crucial, because my pieces don’t arrive like Athena, fully formed and perfect from an creator’s aching skull. They almost always take finessing and coaxing and bit of flirting. They’re often different on paper than they were in my head. Their is one idea I’ve been courting for years, and still no conquest. It’s part of the fun and part of the headache, and definitely necessary to the quality of the final piece.
It sounds like your process is very much like mine.
Feels like mine borders delusions of grandeur sometimes, because when I get it on paper I think, “What? It was so much better in my head.” Drafting, the necessary drudgery of writing, eh?
I don’t comment often, but I enjoy reading your posts.
I should have mentioned first and foremost, you are blessed with your daughter. What a wonderful discovery that hidden page was. Given all the unpleasant things parents can discover, you should be offering daily thanks to a higher power and plotting secret ways to encourage her. I most definitely envy you.
I take the same approach! I feel that if I don’t write down a thought right when it occurs, I forget it!
SAME! Im constantly writting ideas down when funny things happen to me, or when I get the urge to write something. I use my notes app on my iphone and I have a whole list of topics to write about.
I just started to use a web to create posts based on previous ones. If I can come up with five follow-up articles for my last 5 posts, thats more than a month of blogging all planned out.
I schedule my ideas on a calendar so I don’t forget
That’s great about your daughter. I agree, she is a genius (and I’m a teacher, so I should know)!
Great ideas Jennifer! I never thought to write ideas on a calendar and to do follow up articles!
The follow-up articles build on what you’ve already written and give your blog continuity.
Plus, it usually brings your readers back (which is what we all want)! Thanks.
All I can say is I wish I was as bright as your daughter. . . lol!
♥
I never have done any pre writing so far! although i do a lot of pre thinking
but that never works out..i guess i will follow your amazingly brilliant daughter’s example henceforth!
Pre-writing takes some of the pressure of writing. It allows “playtime” which is paramount in being able to experiment with story elements as well as letting the writer become better acquainted with his/her characters.
If you ever feel funny about pre-writing, visit Wikipedia’s site for the Harry Potter novels. The character info alone is encyclopedic…plus it’s fun to read!
Time to go play!
I do a ton of rewriting in my head, on paper, and in digital files in addition to endless editing. That’s what I love about writing. We can say what we want – only better and better with each rewrite.
It seems like your daughter is growing to be a good writer one day!
Most of the time I did pre-writing but then I got stuck at the end. So I just write something when I am in the mood to write it, my classic problem.
Thanks anyway to share a story of your inspiring daughter.
Honestly, most of my pre-writing (for one-shot short fiction) consists of procrastinating on writing the story. I’ll end up going over the scenario in my head a number of times when walking to and from the grocery store or plodding along on the crosstrainer or treadmill at the gym, and what sticks between iterations is what ends up being the constants the story is built around. I do end up developing a lot of background for my recurring settings, but I’m incredibly bad at structuring the information – mostly the world tends to grow and crystalize pretty organically around the writing as the writing breaks new grounds.
The “proper blogging” I do is reviewing of Random Stuff (where I’ll generally call using/reading/consuming whatever I intend to review and maybe discussing it with my better half some good enough), and blogging my scrapbooking endeavors (so a large part of the blog post will just be a listing of materials used), and I’m admittedly not much given to rewriting non-fiction. The biggest background research task I took on was probably counting corpses in three seasons and change of NCIS, and even that was pretty low-key as background research is concerned, since I would’ve gladly rewatched those seasons for enjoyment anyway.
I have the ABILITY to prewrite; I’ve written some pretty decent academic essays, for one, and I’ve worked SOME writing from outlines to not-horrible results. I just don’t enjoy doing so in a structured manner beyond a certain point, as it slows me down and if I lose enough momentum I’ll hit the “okay, I’ve worked through this and figured everything out, now I’m sick of it” station and it’s terribly hard to get the train of thought moving again once it’s stopped there.
I sometimes take days to write a single entry, even of it is a paragraph or two. I come up with the basis of what I want to write about and write an initial draft, then re-read and edit and add more over two or three days. Then I read it three times to make sure I am satisfied with it, and then I post it.
I jot down ideas and maybe a few dot points to set a structure if it is going to be a lengthier piece, but most of the actual “writing” gets mulled around in my head. I then just sit down and type straight from my thoughts. On completion I read through and make necessary adjustments. Works fine unless I get stopped in the middle. I find it hard to pick up and follow on in the same style or mood if I have been interrupted.
I feel the same way. It doesn’t take much to ruin a good train of thought.
When I blog it’s usually spur of the moment and when I can get 10 – 20 minutes of uninterrupted time. So when I finish my post, I read through at least twice before publishing and that’s it. I do have a notebook I keep ideas in for future posts but so far haven’t used them. I don’t post everyday though.
I do little in the way of pre-writing. I spend some time imagining, and when I think I’m onto something, I start writing. I tend to let my characters grow up organically.
I have biographies for all of my characters–and quite detailed, too–but all of them were developed AFTER I had already written my first book and parts of the two sequels.
Reading your daughters journal is tacky and ultimately destined to destroy her trust in you, and anyone else.
Blogging and bragging about it is reprehensible.
Bah. Lighten up.
Ouch! Yikes! Is it safe to come out now?
Since I blog on WordPress, I have lots of drafts I’ve used to capture a thought I want to expand upon. I revisit them either as I feel the muse or when I’m at a loss for something to share. Sometimes I can’t remember why I started writing something, so my challenge is to become careful and disciplined enough to leave an intelligible trace of my thought process in each draft.
Holy cow, your kid IS awesome!
At her age, I was just copying with my toys whatever I saw on TV! XD
I think I *need* to do more pre-writing. I know I *need* to get rid of all the pre-written stuff, and perhaps start over from the beginning…but it’s so, so hard!
There’s no doubt that your daughter’s going to go on to great things! I look forward to reading her work in a decade or so! (Probably a little over a decade..?)
Maybe in the next couple of years with the work she is doing!!!
Reblogged this on Hectic November and commented:
Mm, pre-writing. The thing all aspiring novelists know they SHOULD do, but something we rarely accomplish!
We’re getting beat by elementary kids, my friends. We need to step it up a notch!
I’m not quite sure what the term “web’ (below) refers to, but I’m guessing it may refer to something like mind-mapping in any of its myriad formats. I’ve used this for many years. I’ve also taught a Journal Quilt class for a number of years (Google the term.) We start with mind-mapping…
hi! I do not know very well English. but I think that being a writer is a vocation, a necessity. only if you have these characteristics, the message that we want to communicate to the minds of those who act
Oh, how I miss the joie-de-vivre, single-mindedness, and smarts I had in second grade! My boundless curiosity drove my parents to make a gift of Arcady Leokum’s “Tell Me Why”. More than 40 years later I still treasure that copy with its back cover replaced by the cardboard from my father’s laundered shirts… These days, I use many pre-writing strategies that no one admits to anymore: evasion, procrastination, exercise, feigned interest in all things domestic, blogging, Morning Pages, freewriting with students, freewriting without students, making and breaking writing dates, preoccupation with other people’s writing projects and production capacity and good old fashioned gin. Okay, so I was kidding about the gin. But I take it all as part and parcel of the larger nesting-preparation-cover-me-i’m-going-in dance before I saddle up and ride into the headwinds of fear that await all who dare. Keep following your daughter’s lead. She’ll take you places our generations have never even dreamt!
Nope I engage in all of those pre-writing actives including the gin. (Okay but that’s only on weekends, including Thursdays, and with friends. )
P.S. I also keep lists of titles to write, titles to read, movies to see, music to get, use Evernote, swim, drink no coffee, soda or tea, and send thanks to God every waking hour at 22 minutes past.
Your daughter sounds incredible. She’s done more pre-writing for a book than I have. I have all these ideas in my mind for 3 books, but have only jotted down a few notes for each one. I just haven’t taken the time to fully write out my ideas, characters, plot lines, etc. I really should take the time to write out my ideas as they come to me before something else pushes them out of my mind. Writing for work (continuing medical education) takes priority over personal writing, and when I have time for personal writing it usually is for my blog. Thanks for the inspiration to put my ideas on to paper.
I type out bullet points on my memo pad and develop them whenever I’ve got a minute.
pre-writing is a very important part of my process. I usually outline an entire book before I write and draw up my characters in fairly exact detail. The book never exactly follows the outline but is more like a rough sketch I feel free to change at any point of inspiration.
Even in writing my blog posts, I have to pre-write. It helps to physically write out my posts, as I will find grammatical errors more easily. If I come across ideas during the day, I have to stop and write them down. (I have ADD so at times it will be hard to focus.)
On the perils of NOT pre-writing (illustrated!) …http://mindfulmonica.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/if-you-dont-pre-write-be-prepared-to-get-very-familiar-with-your-story/
We just can’t help but think of our kids and grandkids as special and so much smarter than the average kid! And I’ll listen to your “goings on” about yours if you will listen to me about mine! Don’t you just love them to pieces!
Now, seriously…Your daughter seems to have some great thoughts when it comes to this “Writing” thing…Do you think maybe she got it from you?…I think mine got some of my talents…~mkg
I don’t know, I was that kid and years of creative writing classes kind of killed it for me. Now I have great difficulty Pre-writing: even though I know 110% I cannot make anything coherent without at least an outline.
Sometimes I have more luck with story boards but I think sometimes we over-think things. I can’t remember who said it but I remember someone once said/wrote that dissecting a poem is like tying to to a chair and flogging it to death. Sometimes I think creative writing programs are like that with creativity and the will to write.
As you will tell from this reply, I am not a writer so I will just say that you are blessed!
Pre-writing. A concept I would love to be able to give justice. I sit with a piece of paper and start with a character and try to map our their past, their relationships – and then I get stuck on names. What is their Uncles name? Where is he from? The endless list of minute details that seems to pour out of this process – I get overwhelmed, and slowly, oh so slowly, the pen is placed on the desk (or the chair is pushed back from the keyboard) and I stop.
I have found that the creative urge to write strikes me when I am travelling. Physically travelling – in a plane, on a road trip. For some reason the opening paragraph of ‘The’ book lays it’self out in my head – the soundtrack playing in my ears or on my stereo is setting the mood and I am desparately scrabbling for a pen and some paper to get it down. I recently discovered the voice record feature on my phone. So my last road trip I dictated the first chapter. The next rainy day perhaps I will type it out and see where it flows.
Good luck to your daughter – to be so in touch with words and imagery at her age – it’s a rare gift.
It depends on what I’m writing. If it is a poem, usually it comes from the soul and has no pre-writing. With lyrics, it depends on where I’m going with the song…so sometimes there is and sometimes there isn’t. But when I have a project that I decide on whether a book, how-to, or a short story…lots of pre-writing, outlines, characterizations, setting ideas are involved then. I have one children’s book that I have worked on over the years that has a family tree of 6 generations that I did for it, with notes on each family member along with it. I know the characters in the stories in that book so well, they are like my own family.
Even though my ‘writing’ typically involves one or two lines in my cartoon captions, I often use mind maps to explore different caption ideas. I play with words. My thesaurus is my best friend to find that quirky, funny sounding word to help with the humour.
Marti.
PS. At least you can take credit for half the genes that make up your talented daughter.
I’d brag gratefully and strut your joy! Beautiful post! Blessings ~Deborah
Post-Its…from the bedside table to the dashboard during the commute.
Depends on what I’m doing, but generally I take an idea and just start writing. Then, when I start to feel slightly overwhelmed, I stop writing on the story and start working out things like characters, and ideas for the world and so on. It depends on how complex it gets. Most of the things are worked out in my mind though. I do have one story where I have tons of notes, but not much actual story, that happens too. What I usually write down though is a timeline, to put events in order and all that, because I seem to lose track of that easily.
Pre-writing, enhance skills, towards the actual-writing stage e.g. sketches, fold-ups etc. Incorporating this, shouldn’t be left-out, for writers, as well as, startups, as it gears-up, revives, enlightens etc, for putting-in, all possible, effort. I hereby, appreciate your contribution. Thanks.
Since I write about places to walk, I take notes as I walk. The details are impossible to remember. Often it’s a phrase, that catches my imagination at the time – as “a bus of geese” – seeing a flock fly across the horizon in the distance. Then I draft and then I post.
I’d be surprised if she didn’t turn out to be a writer some day! As for me, I don’t do any exercises, unless mindless drivel writing counts. Eventually it becomes something…
Nice and lovely daughter that you have. keep writing at a young age and when she grows up, she can eventually run a publishing company. Keep investing in your child.
I love pre-writing! To me, pre-writing is more fun and exciting because I get to create the characters, the world, flesh out all the little details and see the entire story unfold in my head before putting pen to paper. Or rather- fingers to keyboard.. I love every little thing about the pre-writing/brainstorming process! Another reason I love pre-writing so much is that I have little faith in my writing ability. So I usually just do a hell of a lot of pre-writing and then let it all just sit until I’m brave enough to have a go at writing it. Haha..
I think I was a lot like your daughter is with pre-writing when I was younger. Probably more so starting around 9 years old, but unfortunately, I never really got the chance to do much creative writing in school, so many of those entries in my own ‘journal’ never saw the light of day. I hope your daughter’s creativity and whatnot are nurtured! She obviously has a real gift and intelligence for her age.
Amber. xx
I have to get courage before I can write, sometimes too. I also occasionally lose my drive for writing down what I’m thinking about if I pre-write too much.
If I am posting on my blog I usually sit down without any Idea at all except that I will write. No idea at all, well not quite, I am a mystic and I blog about it. I sit and wonder if some idea will come, Word by word I write and a sentence is revealed, eventually a topic and I begin to have a sense of what I am writing about.
‘Pre-writing’ that is a new word for me. Unlike your daughter who does this in a systematic way, I guess most of us weekend writers have our own chaotic ways of doing it. On my blog, write about incidents from my past, and try to present them in the form of stories. The way I do this is, first of all I set myself a target of one post every two weeks. Next, from my collection of memories pick out ones which stand out. Then sit down and force myself to write down a story with those memories in about 800 -1000 words.
The first draft is always pathetic.Have to force myself to get it done with. Once done,save the effort and ignore it for the next couple of hours. The second time I read it, I edit about 60% of the text, simply delete the words and put in new lines and sentences. The overall effect I try for is to see that there is a flow in the narrative, also the attempt is to keep it crisp and to the point.
Now I ask my wife to proof read the story. Last edits are made and the story is ready for being published.
Pre-writing for me is thinking about what I want to write, writing down small snippets of great ideas, dialogues, lines, and even paragraphs that come to me. I usually have to let ideas stew around for awhile in my head before it becomes clear what I actually want to say and how I want to say it.
Then I write a first draft all at once.
Just finished a creative writing residency with 90 elementary school students. We had four days to create an outline, define story line including conflict, resolution and climax. Students learned characterization, story development (who, what, when, where, how and why), writing, the art of re-write and performing the story in readers theatre style.
It was a fast and furious week with a fantastic imaginative pay-off. It is encouraging, that despite the cut backs in schools, as writers we can find creative spirits amongst us to carry the written word.
I wrote a post on one of my blogs about my father not talking about his daughter because it bored the shit out of people.
There you go:
http://cloudsmovingin.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/what-not-to-post-on-your-blog/
Seriously, I couldn’t even be bothered with the rest of your post. Kiddy posts are for kiddy blogs. Not for serious writers.
Tell us how you really feel.
I wouldn’t dream of it! I guess I look forward to your grammatical thoughtful posts and I was a bit surprised to find it was proud dad time. You might get the empathy from the parents, but a few others will be switched off. I’m sure one of the top tips for blogging is about consistency? A little variation is good – but it needs to be chosen with care. Anyway, I managed to provide ‘critical feedback’ (!) to at least two other blogs yesterday, so you weren’t alone in receiving my helpful opinion. I have suggested on justanotherwordpressblog that you may wish to consider revamping the DP. And there is considerable overlap between the two blogs. Just saying.
Thank you for your well written message. I am just getting ready to write my first blog, and yours was an inspiration . . . interesting, a little funny, and tugged at my heart strings (4 children and 1 grandchild) I only hope I can be half as interesting!
I’m really new in all of these things about writing post in WordPress. My english is’nt very good at all, but I have a lot of ideas, my problem is that sometimes I don’t know how to put them “in paper”. The story of this little girl made me to remember my own past as a kid, when I used to write and draw without any type of problems.
I have to find that kid again. She hided somewhere inside me.
Frankly, this story about the seven-year-old genius sounds a bit fanciful and exaggerated. Did she really come up with this pre-writing strategy without any prompting from mom and dad?
Personally, I never intentionally do any sort of pre-writing, although it took me almost 40 years to write a screenplay (still unproduced). So the early stages could be called pre-writing. The idea came to me with the story almost fully formed and I hacked out a first, very fundamental version in which, to my dismay, I was unable to make the characters speak – very frustrating. In fact, this first attempt was a treatment without my knowing it: I had heard the word in connection with screenwriting, but didn’t know exactly what it meant. Anyway, having no idea how to go about developing the thing, I put it away and some years later got the idea of writing it as a novel in the manner of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, each chapter being a narration by one of the characters, going back and forth among them. It got off the ground, but really it didn’t fly, and I left it off about halfway through. Then a couple of years ago a filmmaker friend suggested that the two of us write a screenplay together on an idea of his. I agreed, but when the initial material I produced didn’t get a follow-up from him I decided to relaunch the ancient scenario. After writing an outline on file cards, according to my friend’s suggestion – very useful – I whipped the whole thing out in about a month, then later made various small revisions, though so far it has retained its structure and actually, almost everything written in that short period, about two months altogether.