Does James Byrne's Writing Routine Really Work? (5 Minute Writer)

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James Byrne Interview
Allison Buccola Interview

It’s a free weekly article that provides ~5 minute summaries of a longer articles, podcasts, videos, or courses. It’s designed to give you the highlights without the fluff so you can gain the knowledge without wasting time. So you can get back to writing! 

Transcript

5MW: James Byrne Writing Routine

David Gwyn: [00:00:00] If you listened to my interview on Tuesday, you'll know, I talked to James Byrne, a talented author of the Dez Limerick series, his new book, DEADLOCK is out now while we were talking, he revealed how he writes manuscripts really, really fast. And it's weird because his method actually seems like it would be slow. Anyway, here's what he said. 

James Byrne: I can write the first draft of a book in three months, which is remarkably faster than a lot of my cohorts. I write longhand in a steno pad. And I do that in the mornings, then go do my day job.

And then in the evening, I translate it into my computer. So in the morning I'm needing the creative half of my brain to write something. And then in the evening I use the, analytical side of my brain. And I can say right away that day, boy that worked. That was pretty good stuff. Or, oh my God, what the hell is wrong with me?

Was I crack? This mornings terrible? And so I can do instant analysis and say, no, that was no good. I'm gonna get rid of that. It didn't carry the freight it needed to. So that process, that iterative process for me is why I am. Is why I'm pretty fast. I do not do [00:01:00] a lot of plotting. I also think in three acts because I'm a theater dude, so I know usually the plot point for Act one, and I know the big plot point for Act two, and then I don't know how the books end.

And so I just mostly I come up with characters I'm really excited about and then a scenario that I'm really excited about. And then I'll just see where it takes me. 

David Gwyn: So even though he's doing multiple touches on the story, it's allowing him to get to something that's more polished by the end of the day. It seemed like an enticing practice , I mean, who wouldn't want a more refined draft? So I had a week before I went back to work as a teacher and decided to try this process. With two kids at home. I wasn't sure exactly how well it would work for me. But for the seven days before I went back to work, I basically followed this plan. I wrote long hand in the mornings. I did it for about an hour. Yes. My hand hurt. I'll get to that later. Then while my daughters were taking their afternoon nap, I sat down and typed out what I wrote that morning. So here are my three [00:02:00] biggest takeaways from trying out this writing method. Number one less distractions. Probably the biggest positive for this method is that it severely reduces distractions. I put my headphones on, queued up a writing playlist and went to work. Did my hand hurt, like I was back in Mr. Delaney is world history class in 10th grade. Sure. But I think that might improve over time. Or not. I don't know. Nothing seemed to work when I was in high school, but without an internet connection, literally at my fingertips, I found myself more focused on my writing. 

I didn't slip into some dark corner of YouTube. 

 Or scroll through Twitter, endlessly on my computer. With just a pen and paper in front of me. 

I had no other choice, but to write. Number two. I tend to write in a hectic way. I bounce around from paragraph to paragraph I'm always in the same scene or usually anyway, but if I get an idea for a description, I'm like, throw it higher up in the scene. Then I go back to dialogue. And if I have an idea on how the conversation [00:03:00] might end, I would scroll down a little bit and write that out. 

Then I fill in, what's missing to link everything together. That's my normal routine. You know, and sometimes I'll even fly through dialogue before going back to add those dialogue tags action in description. So for me, I imagine James' routine would either feel really freeing and make me focus on one part of the text. Or it would be really frustrating. So, which was it? A little bit of both, honestly. 

I was able to write a more fluid draft 

' cause I wasn't bouncing around to different parts of the scene. And honestly, this may have led to a more cohesive draft. 

But when an idea popped into my head, I struggled at first with where to put that idea. I didn't want to lose it.

But I didn't want to get off track with what I was doing. I settled on this. I kept a red pen nearby and any time I came up with something that didn't fit in that natural flow, I just used the red pen and jotted it in the margins. That way, it was really clear to me that the red pen meant I [00:04:00] was putting something in that scene somewhere, but just not quite where I was in the flow. 

And when I got to typing it out, it worked pretty well. Okay, before we get to number three, I just want to stop in to say that if you're a querying author, you may have heard I'm doing a unique pitching contest where you can send in a brief summary of your story. And the first 250 to 500 words. Then I'm going to put that submission in front of agents. So far more than 10 agents have agreed to review submissions, which means agents who are actively looking for writers, just like you. 

Now I'm not currently accepting submissions. However, if you want to be notified when submissions open again, be sure to sign up in the link in the description for this episode. All right, let's get to number three. A cleaner draft this process without a doubt, led to a cleaner draft. By the afternoon, I was fixing things that normally get edited on a second draft. Instead, I'm knocking these edits out as I'm going. 

I was able to add, delete or elaborate on things. 

As necessary. It actually reminded me a lot of [00:05:00] Alison Buccola's writing advice. She's an author with a debut thriller out now. And another one on the way at some point.

Anyway, this is what she said about how she got her debut manuscript. Query ready. 

Allison Buccola: I don't know if I did this for all of my drafts, but for a lot of my drafts, I would go back.

I would like print everything out and then just like start from a blank document and then just start like rewriting the whole thing, which was, which was useful because I find that if I don't do that, I am just, I'll just be like, well, that's, this is good enough. I can just like, copy this over. I can keep this.

I don't really have to change it. But when I'm like, actually going through and like typing everything up or like, thinking about. What do I actually want to have happened here on this like new blank page then I, that I want it to be something different than it is. So I did that a few times, went through a few different drafts.

David Gwyn: It did feel like I was cutting back what I needed to and adding things for clarity, which will mean a better starting point. When I begin the revision process. 

All in all. I kind of liked it. I wasn't expecting to, [00:06:00] but it really kind of worked for me. Now am I going to adopt it full time? I'm just not so sure. 

It's time consuming. 

But again, it delivers a cleaner draft. 

I'm going to keep going with it for now and I'll let you know how it goes. When we think about our writing routines, we sometimes think about comfort about doing what we've always done before, but maybe we should be thinking instead about poking around other methods. Think critically about your strengths and weaknesses. Are you easily distracted over moved distractions? Or your first drafts, extra sloppy. I'm guilty of that, then come up with something that allows you to edit your way into a stronger first draft. There's no right way to write a novel. You have to find your way. And sometimes the best way to do that is to stitch together. Some methods you hear about. 

I want to know what your first draft process is like, join the conversation on Twitter. I'm asking that question today. Follow along at DavidRGwyn is only going to description for my Twitter. As well. Next [00:07:00] week on the podcast, I'll be doing the first agent interview for Thriller101. In which I talk about a submission with an agent guest 

Carleen Geisler: So for as far as like the query first pages, make sure something's happening and make sure it's something that is in tone with your story and 

it doesn't have to set up the story, but it has to set up what kind of story we are about to see. 

David Gwyn: Carleen Geisler of ArtHouse Literary. We'll be here to share what to have in your opening pages to catch and agents. I plus she talks about a little trick in a summary that might help give you a leg up. So be sure to check that out. So you know how to hook an agent with your first pages. 

I'll see you next week.