A Deep Dive on Cycling

November 7, 2024 by Harvey

In Today’s Journal

* An ‘Electric’ Note
* A Deep Dive on Cycling
* A Note on Story Flow and WITD
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

An ‘Electric’ Note

Today, finally (if it doesn’t rain) our electricity will be off for a few hours. So no internet.

The good news is that when the outage is over, our house electricity will be upgraded and I’ll have a lot more power in the Hovel.

The downside is that if you email me, I won’t be able to repy for awhile.

A Deep Dive on Cycling

A writer and new subscriber, I’ll call him Ed, emailed me:

“Been reading through Writing Better Fiction and following the blog, and I had a question about your cycling process. I know everyone gets into their own rhythm, I just wanted to get a little more of your perspective on the matter. Trying to find my own process and hearing what works for different people and why is great help.”

Cool. Great question. Thanks, Ed.

First, for clarity, a definition—

When I say “cycle” or “cycle back” or “cycling,” I mean read over what you’ve written in either the previous writing session or on the previous day.

Cycling is strictly a function of the creative subconscious, never of the conscious, critical mind.

When cycling, you aren’t ‘looking for’ anything. You’re reading for pleasure, allowing your fingers to rest on the keyboard, and allowing yourself (your characters) to ‘touch’ the story as you read.

Now here’s my enhanced and expanded response to Ed:

There are two distinct types of cycling.

The first type is similar to revision but is accomplished while in the creative subconscious. The second type is accomplished in the moment or while in the flow of the story, while I’m actually writing.

In the first type of cycling, I cycle back over everything I write at least twice.

1. I write for about an hour per session (up to a half-hour or so depending on what’s happening in the scene). During that session, I’ll typically write anywhere from 1000 to 1800 words.

Then I take a break. The break might be only a few minutes (usually, a walk to the house and back) or it might be an hour or two or longer if I have some errand to do, appointment to keep, etc.

When I come back for the next session (same day), I cycle back over what I wrote during the previous session.

Again, during cycling, I read for pleasure, but I allow my hands to rest on the keyboard and allow myself (my characters) to touch the story as I read. When I get to the white space again, I keep writing. Lather, rinse, repeat.

2. After I break for the day and come back to the Hovel the next day, I cycle over everything I wrote the day before. Same process on a larger scale. That usually takes only 5 minutes to a half-hour, and when I get to the white space, again I start writing.

3. Finally, I often cycle back several times over high-action or high-emotion scenes (a scene might be only part of a chapter or might run across more than one chapter) to be sure it “feels” right.

That means to be sure I’ve included everything the POV characters notices with his/her physical and emotional senses. For me, that’s what makes the story as “perfect” (meaning as “authentic”) as I can get it.

That’s my whole process for the first type of cycling.

Interestingly enough, Dean Wesley Smith does the same thing, but he cycles back about every 500 words or so. I can’t do that.

For me, that would interrupt the rhythm of the writing session and (I suspect) subliminally convey to the characters that cycling back is more important to me than simply letting the story unfold.

The second type of cycling: ‘At the moment’ or ‘while in the flow’—

This type of cycling occurs because the writer is not stuck in time. Whereas the reader reads the story from “once upon a time” straight through to “the end,” the writer can move back and forth to alter different parts of the story at will.

Often when I’m writing along, one of the characters surprises me. As an example, if Aunt Marge pulls a revolver out of the robe on her pocket but I didn’t see put the revolver INTO her pocket earlier, I cycle back in the story right then, in the moment.

I find the appropriate place and write a sentence or three (from the creative subconscious) to let the reader see Aunt Marge putting the revolver into her robe pocket.

Important Note: I DO NOT continue the first type of cycling (above) from that point.

Why? Because when I cycled back this time, I was ‘looking for’ (critical mind) where to insert the new sentence(s), which I then added from the creative subconscious. So trying to cycle (read, touch the story, etc.) from that point forward might easily allow me to slip into the critical mind.

So instead of cycling forward from there, after I add the necessary sentence(s) I go straight back to the white space and continue writing in the creative subconscious.

The whole secret to cycling for any of the above is to remain in the creative subconscious. If you (or I) allow the critical voice to seep in, the consequences can be tragic and can take hours to repair.

(For an excellent but unfortunate example, see my confession on succumbing to critical voice at this post. It can happen to anybody at any time.)

A Note on Story Flow and WITD

Most of the time, even unexpected interruptions (the neighbor or my wife knocking on the door of the Hovel, etc.) don’t break the flow of a story for me. I can go visit, etc., then come back, sit down, and keep writing. It’s as if the characters heard the knock too and the story paused while I went to visit, etc.

But that’s because none of the story comes from me or my conscious, critical mind. (Hence, writing into the dark.) When a character opens a door or walks around a corner, I literally have zero idea what he’ll see, hear, taste, smell or feel, physically or emotionally.

I firmly believe the characters and their stories actually exist somewhere. Whether that’s in another dimension or an alternate Earth or in my creative subconscious doesn’t matter to me in the slightest.

I just feel very fortunate that I’ve learned to trust the characters to tell the story that they, not I, am living. And I feel very fortunate they’ve trusted me to be their Recorder.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

A Facebook Ad Campaign Deep Dive Again, if you want to keep getting these, sign up at the link. They’re free for November.

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 1140

Writing of Blackwell Ops 30: John Quick Returns

Day 1…… 2155 words. To date…… 2155
Day 2…… 3930 words. To date……. 6085
Day 3…… 3042 words. To date……. 9127
Day 4…… 3057 words. To date……. 12184
Day 5…… 5268 words. To date……. 17452
Day 6…… 1500 words. To date……. 18952
Day 7…… 3194 words. To date……. 22146
Day 8…… 3236 words. To date……. 25382
Day 9…… 3005 words. To date……. 28387
Day 10…. 3742 words. To date……. 32129

Fiction for November…………………. 19945
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 857077
Nonfiction for November……………… 6260
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 340680
2024 consumable words……………… 1021796

Average Fiction WPD (November)…… 3324

2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 15
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..…… 97
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………… 255
Short story collections…………………….… 29

Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.

If you are able, please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. Thank you!