The Toy Box Method of Writing
One of the never-ending debates among writers is what I call the Outline Question.
That is, should writers outline their stories or not?
Some writers swear by their outlines, believing that any book or story written without an outline is destined to be a jumble, incoherent mess of a story that no one will like or read. Others believe that outlines were created by Satan to stifle our creativity and make our stories boring and trite.
The truth is that both are right. There is no One True Way of writing a novel. I know successful writers who outline every book down to the last, tiniest detail, and I know equally successful writers who just start writing and see where the story takes them. Only practice and trial and error can determine which way is best for you.
Myself, I have always written without an outline, making me a ‘discovery’ writer (not using the term ‘pantser’ because I think it’s stupid). I have tried to outline before, but it never really works. I have no problems with writers who DO outline, but for me personally, I don’t do it.
But my writing process has evolved beyond mere discovery writing. To call myself a discovery writer implies I go into my books with absolutely no idea what I am going to write, as if I don’t care about continuity or character development or anything. It also implies that I am going to do a ton of rewriting later, when in fact my method actually results in very clean drafts that require minimal editing and rewriting.
For the longest time, I’ve struggled to describe my process, not helped by the fact that it’s always evolving and changing as I try new things and discard old ways that don’t work anymore. It wasn’t until recently that I came up with the perfect metaphor (or as close to perfect as possible) to describe my process: The Toy Box Method.
When I was a kid, I had a big toy box full of all of my different toys (I still have it, actually, and I plan to give it to my kids when I have some). My toy box was one of my most cherished possessions, because it contained nearly all of my toys, including most of my favorites.
Anytime I got bored, I could pop open my toy box, pull out the various toys within, and start playing. I might have my toys fight each other or maybe act out scenes from movies and TV shows I had seen or even come up with original stories for my toys. None of it was planned out very carefully, of course, but I always had fun and my big variety of toys meant I rarely had any trouble coming up with fun ways to play with them.
I approach writing much the same way. When I start a new book or series, I first need my ‘toys’ before I can begin. That is, I need to know the protagonist, the antagonist, the setting, and the central conflict of the book or series at an absolute minimum, but I often go beyond that, adding more and more ‘toys’ (worldbuilding details, other minor and supporting characters, even themes, etc.) to my ‘toy box’ (worldbuilding notes) to give me more playing opportunities.
Like with my real toy box, I do not plan out very much aside from having some vague ideas I’d like to write at some point in the story. Instead, I pull out the different ‘toys’ I have–characters, setting details, etc.–and put them all together in what I hope is a fun and interesting way. If a certain toy isn’t fun, I put it back in the toy box and pull out another toy. I might even throw it out entirely if it’s that boring, but just as often I discover that a ‘boring’ toy just needs to be used in a different way and then it becomes fun.
Other toys might be good, but I just don’t play with them that much because I don’t know how to use them. One toy might even sit at the very bottom of the toy box, unused but not thrown away, for years until I figure out how to have fun with it.
Some stories might have lots of toys–long novels with tons of characters and deep world-building–while others might be one or two simple but fun toys (such as short stories or novellas). Sometimes I even need to make new toys mid-story or I find the toys I thought would be fun turn out to be boring, while the toys I thought were boring might be more fun than I first thought.
Regardless of the toys I use, I always make sure to have fun. At the same time, keeping my toy box diverse but limited means I always have lots of options but never have so many that my stories become incoherent or hard to understand.
The Toy Box Method, at its core, is about balancing the creativity of discovery writing with the order of outlining. It’s certainly not the One True Way of writing, but it works for me and I recommend you try it if you are still in the process of figuring out your writing process (as we all are).
