Fiction Writer’s Toolshed | Practical Tools for Authors
You have several stories you want to write. Which one do you start with?
That sounds like a practical question. But it can become a much bigger one: what if this is the first thing someone reads by me? What if they think it represents everything I do? What if I choose wrong and waste the momentum I have?
I know that feeling. I’ve spent stretches of time crushed under it, putting out nothing. When I identified what was happening, the problem for me was fear: fear of misrepresentation, fear of losing readers, fear of choosing wrong.
The Mosaic Method is my current best approach to getting through that. It helps me lower the stakes and keep writing while I’m figuring out which larger project to focus on. Let’s see if it’s a tool for your toolshed.
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Fiction Writer’s Toolshed
Choosing What to Write (The Mosaic Method) | ep 002
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Why choosing can feel like a branding decision
This is a new podcast, and I’m walking through the same problem right now. I’m afraid someone will hear one episode and decide the show isn’t for them.
That pressure can be paralyzing. It’s similar to what happens when you have a small body of writing and feel that each piece has to represent all of you. You start making a decision about an imagined audience before you’ve given your own passion and curiosity much room.
One thing I would do was mash projects together. If this piece had to show everything I could do, maybe I could fit everything into it. Kitchen sink, all of it.
That just muddled the work. I needed a way to shrink the emotional stakes enough that I could make something.
One piece is a tile in your body of work
I started thinking of a piece of writing as one tile in a mosaic, rather than the one doorway to my entire career.
When I look at how I discover creators, I often meet them midstream. Someone recommends a favorite piece from a body of work, and I find my way in there.
Try looking at a favorite author and your favorite work by that author. Was it their first book?
Your first piece, second piece or third piece doesn’t have to be the definitive version of who you are or everything you can create. It can be one part of the body of work you’re building.
That thought gives me room to breathe. I can make this piece without asking it to carry every other piece I might ever make.
Your writing practice can make tiles too
There’s a practical version of the same idea. Instead of deciding which whole novel to write first, I can write small pieces within the projects I want to make.
Finished writing doesn’t have to mean a finished novel. It could be 200 words describing a villain, or a page or two about a particular part of a world.
In the pulp adventure world I’m working on, the heroes have a flying craft that acts as their home base. I want it to match the setting and feel a particular way.
It’s much easier for me to sit down and say, “I want to write about the flying ship,” than to ask myself to produce the entire story. I have notes about it. I can start drafting what it’s like.
That first draft is raw material. Then I can shape it into 200 or 300 words that read almost like a wiki entry. Now I have a small, finished piece I can keep in my world bible, share, or work with when the larger story develops.
The tile can still be polished, cut or changed later. Finishing it now doesn’t anchor every detail in place for life.
Give your projects places to collect their pieces
Suppose you have several projects you’ve been dreaming about for years. Give each one a working title or a code name if it doesn’t already have one.
It can be a placeholder. It can be funny. You’re giving yourself a way to keep the projects separate and collect their material.
Then, when something inside a story excites you, start drafting it. A scene you keep imagining. A character. An unusual place. Something you’ve seen in other media that makes you wonder what you could do with your own story.
Those little pieces give you raw material to work with when you build something larger. You’re getting words onto the page while you’re still figuring out what the whole project could become.
The caveat: spend time making finished tiles
This is the part I don’t want you to miss. The Mosaic Method doesn’t work for me unless I spend dedicated writing time turning rough ideas into finished tiles.
Capturing ideas matters. Notes in the phone matter. But if I only keep collecting them, I don’t feel like I’m writing. For me, that can start a spiral of not working and feeling guilty about it.
Even ten minutes spent shaping a rough idea can be useful. I’m talking about time spent doing the writing, with a small piece in front of me that I can actually finish.
The size depends on what you’re making. My flying-craft entry is one example. Your tile doesn’t have to be a wiki entry, and 200 or 300 words isn’t a required limit.
If the difference between gathering material and shaping it feels blurry, I explore those different jobs in Fiction Farming vs. Fiction Cooking.
Keep writing while the larger choice takes shape
I can make tiles for several projects while I’m deciding which one I want to develop into longer work. I suggest trying a piece once or twice a week for a project, but that’s a possible rhythm to work with, not a quota.
I also share little pieces with people willing to read them. A couple hundred words asks less of a new reader than a whole novel. Reactions and questions can help me see what excites people, and that can fuel me to keep writing.
You can keep the piece with the project whether or not you share it.
Eventually, yes, I have to choose which project I’m going to turn into longer work. Then it takes most of my time and focus. Until I know which one, making tiles keeps my engine running.
For me, the point is to stay involved in making things instead of stopping and only thinking about writing. The tiles stay varied and interesting, and I keep getting material onto the page.
A voice memo can give you something to work with
Here’s one more tool that changed how I work: talking into my phone.
I originally recorded the notes for this episode while walking around my living room and folding laundry. Then I worked with the words. I drafted them out, made bullets and tweaked them.
Speaking lets me get rough thoughts out without staring at a blank screen and trying to type something fully formed. It’s energetic. It’s messy. It’s human. Later, I edit it.
Try recording a voice memo about something in one of your projects. If your recorder offers a transcript, copy it into a document. I use Google Docs. Now you have raw material you can shape.
Keep your recordings somewhere you can find them, and give them names you’ll understand later. Something like “Pulp craft brainstorm” tells me what I was doing.
The recording gets material out of your head. You still give it writing time to become a finished tile. For a fuller look at speaking a draft and working with the result, see Say it First: Drafting Your Fiction Out Loud.
Try making one tile
If choosing feels harder than writing, here’s a way to try the method:
- Give your projects temporary names and places to collect their material. You don’t need perfect titles.
- Choose one specific thing inside a project that you want to write about now. Start with something that interests you.
- Draft it, then spend focused writing time shaping a small finished piece. Pick a scale you can work with.
- Keep the piece with the project. Share it if you want reactions. Let what you make help you think about the larger work you want to focus on.
You might disagree with me, and that’s okay. This tool works well for me. Take what feels useful and use it for as long as it’s getting the job done.
Fiction Writer’s Toolshed: Practical Tools for Authors is a Make Exist podcast hosted by Tim Kearney. It offers hands-on training for fiction writers to diagnose writing problems, build their skills, and finish more work.