4 Tips for Personal Writers

4 Tips for Personal Writers

Anybody Can Write a Novel

Chapter 9 “Types of Writers” – Section 11 “Personal Writers”

With Links to Supplementary Material

While some people write for a cause, for the love of story, and/or for profit, there are some who write for themselves—to process their emotions, thoughts, and experiences in life. Even those writers who have other primary motivators can also relate to this feeling. As human experience is tremendously universal, stories that are the result of personal writing have the same potential to help others in the same way they help the writer. However, with revealing something as tender and emotional as the experiences and thoughts that we would dedicate an entire novel to, it is difficult not to guard the story so closely as to suffocate it. Today, I'm going to discuss making the most of this motivation for writing.

Step 1: Use your first draft to purge yourself of strong emotions.

A first draft of a story will always be the first draft—no sort of masterpiece. The only goal is to have a coherent story down on paper that can flow and evolve into a work of art. Utilize this to your advantage, and let your emotions fall onto the page. Do it, and do it badly. Make it personal, and write with the knowledge of what you are doing—letting your emotions burn like fire until there is nothing but chaotic and disorganized embers left.

Step 2: Use your second sequence of drafts to reach catharsis.

Just like with emotional events in life, it isn't sufficient to just let your emotions burn. You must reach a solution, resolution, or conclusion. Discover the driving force for your emotions, what they are driving you toward, and the resolution of your problem. In other words, take the embers and use them to create a sketch—a plan for what you can create from the burning wreckage.

Step 3: Use your third series of drafts to gain artistic and emotional distance.

If, in step one, you have resolved to have your emotions burn, you will have a knowledge that what you created is not yet a masterpiece, just rubble. Because we are trying to confront the instinct to protect our art and our experiences instead of doing the brutal chopping and critiquing that is required of a writer, the knowledge that we are working with rubble is essential for turning your story into art. So focus on a structured plot, on grammar, character development, and all the technical details. Gain distance—and focus on technical excellence.

Step 4: Use your fourth series of drafts to reflect the original spirit of the story.

Part of technical excellence will inevitably cause you to cut the emotions, the resolutions, and everything that was so important to you early on. And that is a good thing—letting it give way to the power of the story. And it will be easier to do if you plan on re-emphasizing the struggle and resolution later on. But this time, use the emotions and the resolution to build up the story. This does not mean superimposing the old story upon the new one, but taking the root of that original feeling and using it as a fire that is custom built for the new and increasingly excellent story.

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