How do you build a story? This is a big question, an important one. An awful lot of people start novels, but very few actually finish them. People start out with an energetic approach to an exciting tale, then either tire, get distracted, or write themselves into an inescapable corner. So, how do you approach a story so that, first and foremost, you finish a first draft?

Some writers outline. They map out the story from beginning to end, chapter by chapter, usually in writing. That way, they know exactly what they need to accomplish scene by scene, chapter by chapter. This technique, if enforced across all authors, would make me want to jump off a bridge. Not that there’s anything wrong with outlining, it just isn’t a technique that awakens my muse. Too much like writing high school research papers.

Then there’s the “seat of the pants” writer. These are the ones least likely to finish a story. They sit down at the computer (or lie on their back with the iPad, like I am now) and just start typing, willing to let the story go where it will. Their writing is free, unfettered by the plodding restraint of following an outline or generally knowing what you’re doing. Maybe these writers get lucky and wind up somewhere near a logical end to a cohesive story. More likely, they get lost. They come to realize they don’t know where they’re going and they give up on getting there. Seat of the pantsers are those guys with a dozen beginnings to books they never finish.

Somewhere between the outliners and the pantsers lie the musers. Musers come up with a story idea, but they don’t hunch over a keyboard or paper and write down every linear aspect of it. Nor do they get to the writing right away. The muser thinks about the story, let’s it germinate in his head, develops its plot and theme over a long period of time. He wants to know what happens, and why. He wants to know where the story will go. He may consider the story for weeks, or months, before he settles in to write the first word. So, he kind of outlines, but in his head, not on paper. And he doesn’t order every little thing, or even every big thing, but instead lines up ideas and meaning. Not “John goes to the grocery. He buys a banana. The banana is bad. He takes it back. The grocer shows him a sign that says, ‘All purchases final’. John learns he should read the sign and check the banana before he lays down his money.” It’s more like “Main character makes a minor mistake that teaches him to think ahead”. I’m a muser.

Figure out which writer you are. There are strengths to each, if they fit your personality. The outliner is more efficient. The pantser is more organic. The muser is both. On points, the outliner, if he ever gets out of the outline phase, is the most likely to finish a story, and faster. Which brings up the next concern in this whole idea of how we build stories.

Avoid those traps that distract you from your purpose. If you’re the outliner, remember that your goal is to write the story, not the outline. There comes a time, when you have at least the beginning, middle and end of your tale, and some number of elements among them, when you need to stop enumerating isolated points and settle into creating a narrative from them. If you’re the pantser, stop going back and rewriting sections you think you might not have done to your best. Your job is to write the story, from the beginning to the end, not from the beginning to the middle, to the beginning, to the middle, to that part just before the middle, to the middle… Leave rewrites to the rewrite phase, which is after the first draft is finished. Finally, if you’re the muser, don’t muse too much, and don’t muse too little. Can you see here the danger of musing? The danger of never starting in the first place? The danger of starting too soon and becoming a de facto pantser? There’s also the danger, since you don’t write down your musings, of forgetting your story. I’m serious.

All this, and my last couple of posts, are by way of pointing out the difficulty of just the logistics of writing. It’s hard just to get started, which is why so few people end up being writers. Think about it. How many times do you hear someone say that, due to personal difficulties, they just haven’t had time lately to write? Like writing requires a certain time. They can only write at their special desk between the hours of two and four on odd-numbered Tuesdays. With a special pen. While listening to Ravel. All that is silly. If you, as a writer, want all that for your writing pleasure, that’s fine. But on the days where you can’t get into your office, write anyway. Shoehorn it into every little nook of time you can find. Write on the bus, while standing in line at Wal-Mart, while on the toilet. Or admit you aren’t really interested. Maybe you have priorities, like you have a day job. So make writing your night job, or your four in the morning job. Perhaps, for whatever reason, you’re too overwrought to write. This is possible, I know. So write about what makes you overwrought.

Writing isn’t that hard. We all start learning it in first grade. Writing well, now that’s another story, and a scary one. Getting started writing in the first place, then finishing that thing you started, that’s the sweetest story of all.