Welcome back Grinders! Flow is a great topic to discuss and I want to start the discussion by thanking Ray who posted the question about personal pacing on a project on Google+. I love to hear from fans of the blog, and Grinders if you have a question post it in the comments and I will answer it in a future post. Now onto the meat about pacing.
Ray's question has to do with speed of writing during a project. He suggested that he will have one pace at the beginning of the project and as he works into the novel he will speed up and end up writing more quantity as he gets deeper. This is a great thing Ray because from experience in talking to writers it can often be the opposite for people and that leads to people abandoning their project because their flow just fizzles out.This can happen to anyone at anytime so what can you do to keep the momentum in a project?
First I will agree with Ray in saying that most times when I hit a good rhythm which I tend to refer to as workflow or simply flow, my speed will pick up and I write for longer and more fruitful sessions. Sounds great sure, but how do you get to that point if you have a hard time when everything seems to fall apart in the middle?
Granted everyone will have to find their own solution but I think it will help everyone if I share my own approach to keeping it going when it gets hard. One of the things that has helped me the most to keep going at a furious flow in the middle of any project is to do two things: First, and this is rather counter to most logic, but I recommend don't putting in chapters or anything else into the text if you don't have to. That means avoid adding chapter numbers or names or even adding Part One or Book One to section off the first draft. There are a couple of reasons for this:
First it keeps you from putting up a self imposed wall inside the book which often forces the writer to introduce conflict, have the conflict and then add some form of resolution inside that scene or chapter. Sometimes you cannot worry about following the conventions of writing by ensuring that a problem is introduced, a conflict to solve it ensues and then you wrap it up whether that is a happy ending or cliffhanger. I have found that imposing these structures in my story will encourage me to hit a wall when I finish a critical chapter. This can be compared to reading any book, when you come to the end of a chapter you have a natural desire to stop and mark your spot. While some authors do such a great job of ending chapters with a cliffhanger or with a question which drives the reader to continue reading no matter how long they have been reading, those teasers are usually built in to the end of a project. It is difficult to have those built in during the first draft, at least not consistently.
Second I find when I go back to revise that it is a great deal easier to keep my flow up because there are few natural pauses to the story until I add them in. For example I find a lot of times where I think a chapter or part may end, it doesn't because I have written something spontaneous in the middle of it that builds a much better spot to end a chapter and maintain a high level of tension for the reader to continue to read on.
The second thing I do to keep my flow speed up is to try my best to end a writing session during a scene or moment that isn't resolved, sometimes I even end mid sentence. This idea isn't new by any means but if you haven't explored it yet, please do, it can really help you pick up the story the next time you sit down to write because you will get back into the flow to resolve what you started from the previous session. This is very similar to ending a chapter for the reader with a cliffhanger that will force them to read on. If you can do this for yourself as the writer of the story you will be surprised how easy it is to get started with another strong flow of words.
Here is the challenge, (you thought I wasn't going to include one didn't you?) over the next couple of writing sessions you work through try to avoid adding in chapters as well as finishing a writing session leaving something unresolved. I have no doubt that this will feel awkward the first few times, and you will struggle to allow yourself to write this way, but I guarantee when you begin the next session it will be easier than it was before and you will find a surprise when you look back at your tracked writing sessions, you will see a faster flow of words and more productivity which will only benefit you in getting the words out. Don't forget to let me know how it goes in the comments.
Until next time Grinders, keep at those projects and grind them out.
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