Thinking About Writing – The Process

I can remember someone saying once that a published book is the part of the iceberg that appears above the surface of the water. The much larger part of that iceberg is hidden beneath the water. What is hidden is the work that went into the published product. The years of thinking, of molding, of forming a story. Or, of finding the story.

I remember Stephen King once answered the question, “Where do you find the ideas for your stories?” He said he would walk in the desert. The things that were poking up out of the ground were his stories. He’d dig one up. I liked that.

Even now, as I sit writing this blog post, I really didn’t know other than I would write about the very act of writing. Other than that, I was willing to sit back and allow it to happen.

You know, that’s actually the hard part. It’s easy, and it’s hard all at the same time. At least, for me it is. It also took me years to be able to sit down and not really have a clue what my writing was going to be about, and then produce something that fulfilled me.

Now, when you’re writing on a longer project, you would have your chapters already laid out. At least, I do. I love to use a mind-mapping strategy for larger projects. You start with a premise in a circle on a piece of paper. I suppose you could do this on your computer, but I find using a writing implement, like a crayon or a marker, with the feel of paper too delicious for words. Then, like a flower, all sorts of leaves sprout. Or vines. Along each of those offshoots come your chapters. Not all of them are going to end up in the story. You’re playing right now. I love to see a few words for a chapter twine around the page, riding the back of that vine. You’re planting for your story.

Once you feel you are done, or you’ve run out of room and decide you’re done with this stage of the process, you sit back on your heels and take another look at what you just drew.

This is where you pick the offshoots that please you, and then you move to your computer or notebook. Write a very short synopsis of your story. That’s what went into the central circle. Then, begin laying out your chapters. Those are the leaves and vines on your plant. Use whichever ones you feel are necessary. Some of them you won’t use, though they might show up later on in the story.

Now, you go back to the one-liners you wrote on your computer. You expand them from the short, bare-bones statements into something a little longer. Typically, I move from one or two lines to something that is maybe five or six lines long. That is a chapter. Roughly speaking, I’ve got maybe 10 or 15 chapters. From there, I write the book.

I have already determined how I want the book to feel in my hand. For this, you go to a bookstore and see what catches your eye, or, if you’ve got books at home, do it with those books. I don’t care if the story was written 150 years ago or last week. If you liked it, then, that is all that counts. The heft of it in your hand. How does it feel to sit with a cup of tea or a beer beside you to read it? How does it feel if you go out onto your balcony? You’re looking for a mass. You’re not going to copy the book. It is merely a book that you like. I don’t care which books are popular or what trends are happening in books right now. I’m talking about what pleases you.

Look and see how many pages are in the book. Take a sample page from the book, one that has writing on each line. Count the lines on a couple of those pages. Now, count the words on a few of those lines. Do the mathematical thing and average it out. You now have a rough idea of just how many words there will be on each page. You didn’t have to count every stinking word. Just an average of a few lines. For what I write, I generally figure on 10 to 12 words per line and about 33 lines per page. It’s just an estimate. If you’ve got 350 pages, well, then you’re looking at a book that’s going to be about 115,500 words long. Which is probably okay for a novel. I’ve been told novels are about 180,000 words long. In the old NaNoWriMo writing challenges (write your heart out every November with the National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo), the goal was 50,000 words, which, the first time I did one, was an incredible feeling.

Now, this is all an estimate. You do you. But for me? It was enough to get going and to keep going. I’ve had chapters grow overlong and have gotten broken up into pieces. What might have begun as 10 chapters grew to 18. It’s just a road map.

I count everything I write, all my articles, and when I’ve got a book going, I’ll count my output there too. My goal is 50,000 words written every month. Some months I don’t get there, but I usually get close. This month, March of 2026, is going to be a good month for writing. I’m already sitting at 30,000 words, and the month is only half over. Last month was terrible at 26,000 words, but then I was preparing our tax information for our tax lady, which is a horrible job.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate the support. I’ve listed a bunch of places where I am on the internet.

🌺 Pauline Evanosky

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