The Stages

Or: Where I'm coming from...

Jan 17, 2024

The Writing Stages

As mentioned in the previous post, this “Diary of a Stage 3 Writer” thing was all prompted by posts I read over on Dean Wesley Smith’s blog. He says that as he sees it, there are four stages of being a writer.

Below is my version of the stages, that is, my own progression through these stages:

Stage 1:

You’ve decided to go for it! So you write. You don’t know anything about craft, but you write and you tinker with your words a lot. Or maybe you don’t tinker (my first project, I didn’t tinker), and you just write straight through and show it to people, but nobody’s captivated by what you’ve written (not even your Mom) because, as mentioned, you don’t know much about craft yet.

When you do start looking into fiction craft, you learn a bunch of helpful things (that some people1 call writing myths), such as Outline first, First drafts always suck, and It takes multiple drafts to turn out a good story. Aha! you think.

And so, on you go to…

Stage 2:

You assume your story sucked because you didn’t outline, and that to outline a story, you’ve gotta learn some craft. So you do, and you outline your next project, and you write it fast and fix it later (another myth). Writing one story this way takes you FOREVER. Because fixing it later takes a bunch of passes and rewriting. AND TIME! But you’ve bought into the myths. So even though you’ve read On Writing,2 you agree with the mythtellers that Stephen King is probably just an anomaly—after all, nobody liked your pantsed first story—so you keep doing it the mythtellers’ way, the outlining and revising way, figuring eventually it will get better.

You outline, you write, you revise, you eventually ship, no one buys.

You revise, you ship, no one buys.

You outline something new, you write, you revise, you eventually ship, no one buys.

Reset and repeat as years go by.

Then you come across an idea for a story that really takes hold (“The One”). As usual, you outline, you write, you revise, you ship, no one buys, and you put it away and start another project. But The One calls you back. Four times this happens. You get some new insight or learn some new skill, and you revise it.3 Eventually you reach a point where you know you’ve taken The One as far as it can go. It’s ready. Good, even. You ship it to a few more people, but still no one buys.4 So you put it away again, thinking you’ll never work on it again (or be an author), and you start another project again. But The One still speaks to you, and you put so much work into it that it’s hard to ignore it when it crosses your mind. Eventually, you decide to get the thing into the world yourself.

So you hire a recommended veteran editor to do the whole editing shebang (developmental edit, line edit, copyedit, third-party proofread) to the tune of $4600 (It’s a 118,000 word book), expecting to be totally schooled and in her developmental edit letter…. she changes nothing. In fact, she writes a 7-page, double-spaced edit later (when you’ve heard some edit letters run 20 single-spaced pages), outlining something you could do… but then saying she doesn’t recommend it. 😝 In other words, you could have gotten away with just a copyedit. But at least you now know that you’ve learned enough about story to be confident in your appraisal that when you think a project is ready, it is ready. Which really is priceless.

And, as a bonus, you learn a bunch of new things about book making and marketing and you have a bunch of fun.

But now that you have a clean slate, it’s time for the next project, and you do not want to do it the same way. You have several projects to choose from—those lingering projects you started during those four breaks from The One. Two of them stand out. One was written with an outline. The second is an anomaly: on the last break from The One, you got an idea for a story, sat down to take notes, started writing in scene… and a few months later you reached the end.

But it sucks. Clearly it sucks, right? It’s gotta suck. First drafts always suck. It takes multiple drafts to turn out a worthy project. (Myth, myth, myth. Critical, critical, critical.)

But that anomalous draft is the one that calls to you, so you pick it up. You start outlining and fussing to make it better than it is—because it’s a first draft so it’s gotta be bad5—but every time you sit down to work on the revision, you start getting tired and you literally fall asleep working on it. Every time. You wonder if this is some… ? message ? … ??? You don’t know. But there’s gotta be a better way.

(Later, when you hear the term creative voice, you’ll realize that that’s exactly what it was: a message. This—this falling asleep when you try to left-brain the story—is your creative voice telling you, “Hey! Stop! Trust me! There’s another way! It doesn’t have to be this tedious!”)

What is the other way? You keep trying to revise but keep falling asleep when you do, and eventually you let other things take priority. You’re reaching, reaching, reaching for Stage 3… but you don’t know it yet. You don’t even know there is a Stage 3. How the hell do you get there?6 How do you bust Revision Block?7

Stage 3:

Then one day, while doing something else, you stumble across something new. You don’t know how you got here, how you found this information… but holy cow. Stage 3. A whole new world.

Except it’s not. You’ve heard of pantsers before. You were a pantser before; you pantsed your first project (the one your mom said wasn’t good…8). And you mostly pantsed the project you drafted most recently (after 10+ years of studying craft) that you’re now trying to revise.

And as you read about the Stages of a Writer, you realize that this information could not have come to you at a better time. Because now you are ready to listen. Now you have enough experience to know that what you’re reading, every single bit of it, is true.

And you did not come this far9 in your writing journey to stop now. You are all in to solidify yourself as a Stage 3 Writer… and then a late Stage 3 Writer… and then, eventually, a Stage 4 Writer.10

But I’m getting ahead of myself. And I can feel that I’ve gotten myself worked up. So let’s take a breather shall we? Let’s talk about Stage 3 and why I’m so excited.

Why Stage 3 Excites Me

After reading Dean’s posts, I consider myself an early Stage 3 writer. At the very least a late, late, late Stage 2 desperately reaching for Stage 3. (But I’ve grabbed it now. I’m early Stage 3.)

Stage 3 Writers are well-versed in their craft, but what really resonated with me is that Stage 3 writers start trusting their craft. And their voice. I love this. I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but I am ready to put this into practice.

So what does that mean? It means that from now on, when I write new projects, I’m going to trust that I not only know my craft but have internalized it—that when I write, it will show up on the page.11

But what about my recently pantsed, now in revision project?

Since discovering the stages, I have picked up my revision-blocked project again. I pantsed it (Yay for me, Stage 3!), but it was written under the influence of some of the myths. In particular, the write it fast, fix it slowly myth. So, it’s sloppy.

But not as sloppy as I previously thought before learning the Stages. This time I picked it up with a let’s see what’s already working eye instead of a critical, everything’s wrong, let’s fix it eye, and as I go through it, I’m finding that not only am I not falling asleep, but the words flow, and I hit the structure points. And I even included things like foreshadowing—Foreshadowing!—instinctively. My 10+ years of studying the craft is visible on the page. And this pantsed project, “sloppy” though it is, is evidence that I can trust my skills.

This is huge.

So while I have some work to do on this project, I’m viewing it as a transitional project, the project that will shift me solidly into Stage 3, into a writer who trusts her words and her craft and her skill and her ability to learn new craft and new skill12 if a project requires it.

And let’s hope that my projects do, because…

I see you, Stage 4

Because that’s just the beginning. I don’t want to just settle myself comfortably in stage 3. I want to level up.

Which means I’ve gotta write more consistently. The shittiest thing about revising all the time is that you’re probably not writing. At least that’s how it has worked for me. We’ll get into this more in later posts.

We’ll also, I’m hoping, get into advanced levels of Craft. I know they exist; I don’t yet know what they all are. And we’ll talk about Process, including writing consistently, approaching read-throughs/revision, and the all-important finishing.

We’ll talk about Business, because that’s something I’ve definitely got to level up. And we’ll talk about Path, all the stuff one can do with a finished story. And we’ll probably talk about Product, including putting a book and other materials together, since I anticipate a hybrid approach in my (much clearer now) future.

Anyway. 😅 For now, I just know that I want to get better all around. If that’s you too, then stay tuned for next week’s post: The Rules.

Thank you for reading!

I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

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