I’ve been writing much more consistently over the last few years after a years-long hiatus starting in college. Basically, I dropped all my useless expectations of what my writing should be and started to pay a lot more attention to my own writing sensibilities. I’ve been leaning into the way I like to write without regard to anything else. I have a career elsewhere which I’d like to stay in so the only audience I have to care about is myself so I can go as niche as I want.
Here are some of my quirks:
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My descriptions tend to be functional or absent. I will describe features of characters and settings only as necessary and leave to the imagination whatever I can. This keeps the action and dialogue moving at breakneck pace.
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While editing, when I think something is too explicit I often make it more vague. For example, a character might describe how and why a problem is happening and I will change it so that they are only mentioning their experience of the problem and obfuscating things they wouldn’t want to emphasize.
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I’ll write pages of notes detailing some system or concept only to hint at it briefly in the narrative. This is to imply consistency while being relevant and fast. Also, mystery is fun.
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I spend a loooot of time re-reading and adjusting the last few thousand words. I wrote it specifically so I would like it, so it’s a lot of fun to go back and make it so I like it more. I enjoy editing as much as writing.
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I cut a lot of material when it’s not working for me or if it starts to clutter things up. Whenever I cut something, I put it on a separate document. Sometimes I find somewhere else to insert it where it would make more sense. Sometimes I note why I deleted it to give me an idea of what I want instead.
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I love stealing from history. Characters, concepts, social constructs, belief systems, politics, etc. It’s all there free to take and adapt.
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I make up a lot of stuff on the spot, then go back and add it in so it seems like I planned ro include it from the beginning.
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My outline is only a suggestion.
What are your quirks?
I tend to value dialouge and character interactions over narration to tell a story.
I tend not to reread once I hit a character threshold, it just becomes nit picky to me and I find if I’m constantly rereading I’m constantly having new ideas I try to shove into this small section of story, so if I just read only as much as necessary to get back into the mind space, I can focus on expanding the whole rather than detailing something smaller.
I have a process where I assign actors to characters to better help with a character gaining a bit of autonomy. I prefer to pretend I’m just recording something happening rather than creating it, and it helps if I can have a base for characters when I first create them, it seems to just make mannerisms and dialouge appear out of thin air.
Nice list! I’ve had a similar experience as you, and many of your bullet points would overlap mine. (And the ones which don’t overlap I might learn/steal from you!)
