Here’s an entry from my writing journal from Mar 3, 2003, slightly edited for publication:

I’m not doing too badly, compared to my output rate yesterday. I’m close to 2000 words in just over three hours. That’s about 537 words per hour. This is slightly less that the average of 553 words/hr that I had hoped for. But I am producing fiction like never before.

Because I’m just picking a story and simply starting to write. And it’s working!! Amazing! Don’t try this at home, kids. I’m a trained professional. Ah what the heck, go for it. Choose one story from your list of story ideas. Now make up a list of interconnected events, even if they’re not in story order. Pick an event and just start writing: dialogue, prose, or a combination. When you stop, pick another event and do the same thing. Don’t spend too much time thinking about the event. Make up a character name and show them doing something that is somehow related to the basic idea of the story.

Sometimes, you may not have a list of sub-events. In that case, keep the idea behind the story in mind and just make up a character. What are they doing? Does it somehow relate to the story? If it doesn’t, ignore it for now. Maybe it will make more sense later. The key thing to remember is that while a story is being told, the characters are living their lives. And even portraying a dream sequence may have some significance later on.

It’s 6:29 pm, 2345 words. My output dropped to about an avg of 250 words/hr for the past 1.5 hrs. But I’m not worried. I’ve been plotting out “Gene Pool”, and proving my new hypothesis on an almost surefire way of writing short stories. Or even novels. I made up a small list of plot events, and the list just started evolving. Then, I picked an “easy” event to write about and just started writing. It’s amazing how quickly you can produce a few thousand words of fiction that way.

What’s important to note is that your characters do not spend every minute of their lives undergoing revelations and doing incredible things. There are mundane events in their day. If you are writing short fiction, the reader will not see much of the mundane events. If you’re writing a novel, average every day events must punctuate the exciting points. Use the “inbetween” occurrences to build up to those exciting points, then have their characters resume their lives.

Fantasy writer Robert Jordan, author of the NY Times bestselling “Wheel of Time” saga, has a knack for letting his characters live their lives. Every time a new book in the series is about to come out, I re-read the previous books again ahead of time. The mastery in his writing comes from the fact that he balances description and dialogue of normal between all the very exciting action scenes. He creates a semblance of reality by using a cast of thousands (probably literally) going about their lives, but seeds glimpse into what’s coming. The result is an exciting work of epic fantasy fiction that’s hard to put down.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://talespinner.countwordula.com