Hello, I am a big fan of Carrion Comfort and I was wondering if you are up to sharing a bit about your writing process for it? It's such an intriguing read, and as I am not a writer myself it just seems mind-boggling to me, to come up with and execute something like Carrion Comfort!
Especially after the announcement of the additional works within the universe, I've just been extra curious about how it all works. I saw in another answered ask that you mentioned your super rough bullet points structure outline, and I'm so curious about that too. Are they overarching points for the whole story, or do you have outlines for each chapter as well? And when or how did those additional works come about?
I don't know, I'm just in awe of the story and I'd absolutely love to hear any and all thoughts about the process or behind the scenes work you might feel comfortable sharing! But completely understand if it's something private too.
(Also just so you know, I am dying of curiosity and excitement to know whose outsider POV we will be getting, your outside POVs are so good and I really look forward to another one!)
Either way, you're doing an incredible job and I'm super excited for the final stretch of the Carrion Comfort story! Thanks for sharing it with us 🫶
I'm happy to talk a bit about my process!! I don't get to talk about my writing a ton irl so super appreciate your interest in hearing about it :))
my process is pretty much universal for everything I write (except for the short one-shots that I tend to write in a single manic burst lol)—I start with an idea, and then start making bullet points of scenes, quotes, specific story beats, etc., until I figure out a structure, and then I'll build it out more fully under that structure.
so, for carrion comfort, I figured out the POVs and the order I wanted them in for the chapters, and then they each ended up with 3-8 main bullet points of the big scenes I wanted to hit, and then sub-bullets for rough sentences, additional details, etc. in comparison, for the additional works, I don't have the structure down for them yet, so right now that's just a loooooong, undifferentiated list of bullet points that I'll eventually do the same thing to!
the outline on the latter chapters in anything I'm working on tends to be pretty sparse at the start (for carrion comfort I think chapter 11 originally had literally one (1) single bullet point besides the POV lol) but they get more populated as I go along and have more ideas. sometimes I get totally taken in a different direction than I was expecting by the characters though, so I don't really want to overpopulate them anyways! I also write super linearly—I am incapable of writing scenes out of order—so I just work my way through the bullet points while (inevitably) also adding in new things lol
I also have to shout out Britt, who is a huge part of my writing process! we just sit on the couch and riff about different scenes and ideas—those conversations are where a ton of my ideas for both fics and specific scenes come into existence! and if I get stuck or write myself into a corner, talking it out with her usually helps me figure out :))
and if I get really, really stuck, having a shower and washing my hair is a near fool-proof solve? idk its just a magic reset button for my brain.
as a look behind the curtain—this was my outline for the first three chapters :))
