— Creating a Text - Ann Marie

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?

I’ve had discussions like this with writer friends — there is the perception that we are divided into the planners and the dreamers, those who just let the story develop on its own. I think if you’re working on a novel, you need to incorporate both, although it’s always a personal formula, whether a lot of dreaming with a little tightening up of plot
points, or a complicated plot that opens out in places.

I’m sure that there are parts, but not that they come in any order. Stories for me can begin with an idea, a character, a title, sometimes a plot. My story, In Charge of the Letter M, began with that irresistible title.

I’m even willing to believe that there are authors whose method varies from
book to book, and story to story.

Ann Marie’s story, In Charge of the Letter M, will be published online at www.ghotimag.com in the summer issue. She blogs at: www.zenofwriting.com.

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— Creating a Text - Yvonne Eve Walus

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
I’ve tried many different ways of writing:
Jumping in without having planned anything.
Writing an outline from the beginning to the end before starting the actual text.
Writing an outline from the initial idea/premise and expanding it outwards (I think it’s called the snowflake technique) before starting the actual [...]

— Creating a Text - Yang-May Ooi

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
The idea for a story usually starts as a startling image in my mind - something memorable or haunting, either inspired by an incident in real life or something I’ve read or seen. For my first novel, The Flame Tree, it was a conversation I [...]

— Creating a Text - Anne Frasier

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
It’s different for each book.
The trigger can be centered around a crime, a setting, a character, something I read in the paper or heard on the news. Something a friend told me. Many times - maybe even every time — the [...]

— Creating a Text - Susan Helene Gottfried

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
When creating what I hope will be a new book, or a fictional outtake for my blog, or a new character to straddle both worlds — novel or blog star — there are stages involved. I’ll focus on writing books here, as the process for outtakes [...]

— Creating a Text - Clare Dudman

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
For me the creation of text depends on my reading and experiences. Since all of my books for adults have been based on historical events in foreign lands I have considered it essential to go there and ask questions. Initially I just walk around [...]

— Creating a Text - Milly Johnson

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
Personally my own experience of writing a book is that it begins with a single inspiration: something I read, something I hear that my subconscious instantly recognises as a ‘potential’ story. For instance, an article I read about clutter clearing spawned the seed in [...]

— Creating a Text - John Fullerton

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
In Man, just as in other sentient creatures, feeling precedes thought.
Though idealogues and clerics would wish it otherwise, consciousness is the servant of instinct.
The shiver induced by the setting sun induces the feeling of being chilly, quickly followed by the thought to go inside or pull [...]

— Creating a Text - Ann Cleeves

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
A moment of inspiration followed by a number of phases, of new perspectives on what the point of the book is and ideas which instigate editing and re-writes. Hard to talk about it in the abstract though, so I’ll look at my novel, Raven Black.
The [...]

— Creating a Text - Andrew Taylor

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?
It’s a fascinating question (well to me, anyway, and any other writer). Most of my books begin with the gradual accumulation of ideas, like a build-up of sediment. It can take years. I mean ideas in the broadest sense, of course - anything from [...]