#juicespo

Personally I’ve also found it difficult for the longest time. There are all kinds of ways you can trick your brain into working more efficiently while writing, though, and I’m just going to share some things I’ve picked up over the years. Some have arrived via my own discovery and others have been taught to me by mentors and tutors. The goal of this juicy tip piece is to help out writers who are struggling to focus on their work for any reason. It may or may not help you out! Here’s the basic rundown:

Setting The Mood

The brain is pretty easy to train, pavlov style, if you know how. The story goes, ring a bell every time you feed your pet and your pet will eventually become hungry whenever they hear the bell.

Try setting up a routine to get your brain into “writing mode” and stick to it, more or less. What I like to do is brew a hot drink, get myself a snack and then put on one of my playlists. Sometimes I might even go outside for a quick walk before sitting down to write. I find that some genres of music also help me write better than others. I also have two specific places in my apartment that I like to write, and I like to make sure that I’m fully comfortable so I can concentrate.

Setting up ‘rituals’ and specific environments to write in can gradually improve your ability to focus and produce more writing. It isn’t by any means a quick solution, but in the long run it can be the best decision. If you have a hard time remembering, maybe write something on a post-it note and place it near your work space to remind you of your rituals.

Fine-tune Your Surroundings

Make sure your surroundings are fully prepared for your writing session. Anything that can distract or disrupt your work flow should be dealt with. If you need to put your phone on silent, go ahead and do that. If you have books and comics on your desk it might be a good idea to move them out of arms reach so you don’t feel tempted to read instead. 

Make sure your work area is tidy, too. If you have a lot of clutter and chaos on your desk or table, and I mean more than usual, go ahead and move some stuff around. I know I’m guilty of leaving things out on my desk and it tends to make my space feel more cramped. A messy space can worsen messy thinking, and tidying it up can help you get into the right mindset. If you want to really focus and work at your best, tidying up can make a world of difference.

Anything that you might need should be close at hand! You should have a drink, a light snack and other essentials handy. I like to have a chapstick on my desk, for example, as well as a pen pot and all the notebooks and scraps of paper I might need to look at for notes I’ve made. If you have a corkboard, this is a great place to pin up notes for quick access. It’s important that your space is constructed to help you write and to keep you inspired.

If it helps, hang up things that inspire you - decorations, artworks or even photographs that spark some kind of creativity in you. I’ve got all sorts of things pinned up on the walls in my office area, from my own artwork to posters to decorative items I found in thrift stores. Surround yourself with inspiration and make sure you’re comfortable.

Break Down Your Tasks And Notes

A task can feel much more intimidating and harder to pull off, if it seems nebulous or unstructured. We all have different ways of compartmentalising our tasks, whether it be with a list or a table, or even just using sticky notes. If you don’t know what works best for you it may be a good idea to experiment.

Making some form of organised document to tell you what needs to be done can make the whole task of writing easier. This can be in regards to juggling multiple projects, or even just in the context of one thing you’re working on. If you’re struggling to plot your stories or plan your essays, maybe starting with a list of things that need to occur within the work will help. From there, you can create other lists to keep track of names, dates and even story beats. Before you know it, you should find that your ideas are a bit easier to process. Sometimes you might need a table or graph of some sort for your world building. You might find that other formats work better for you. No matter how you use these things, they can help you map things out and break them down. Making your information and notes easy to read will streamline your workflow.

You might find that planning too much is dangerous though - never over-do it with your lists and tables. You don’t need a list for everything or a sticky note for everything; sometimes you might find that mixing and matching these methods is best for you. Eventually you will find the sweet spot that most writers have, somewhere between neat organisation and improvisation.

Enlist Assistance Where Needed

Know when to tackle something head on, and when to admit that you’re not able to do it alone. It’s best to have friends that are also interested in writing so that you can assist each other whenever needed or even just show them your ideas so that you can enthuse about them together. The added enthusiasm of others can be a strong motivator to continue, and they could even offer input to help develop your work.

Even if you don’t have writer friends, you can always bring in friends who have enthusiasm for fiction in general - a friend who is an avid reader, or who has interest in the genre or format you’re writing in. They could always offer input as well, in a pinch. Don’t be afraid to ask, even if they’re not able to help. It’s always worth trying to reach out. Other writers and enthusiasts can be found online as well, if real-life friends aren’t able to assist you.

Firstly, tailor your profile to its purpose.

Are you making something visual or will it just be a text? If you’r going to be drawing or live-action casting your character it may be a good idea to include drawings. You’ll need to make sure you’ve got a thorough understanding of their visual look. This is important to include as reference - character profiles are most useful to yourself, so it makes sense to keep written and visual reference together just to streamline your work process.

Will your character be appearing a lot? You might not want to include a whole lot of information on a character who will only play a minor role. Of course, your main cast will need much more information recorded. It’s a good idea to keep the amount of recorded information in parallel with how much they will appear in your work. This can obviously be adjusted or changed according to the story but as a starting point it may help.

What is the nature of your fiction? If your fictional setting is particularly unique you will need to make sure all universe-related info is included. If you’re working with sci-fi or fantasy for example, there may be a particular faction they belong to or they may belong to a fictional race. Of course, if all your characters are human and from earth these are details that won’t be needed, but the nature of your fiction should play a hand in how much you include. If your story is centred around a war or conflict it may be necessary to note which side they’re on. If it’s closely focused on an emotional arc it might be important to include things like personality alignment and psychological hang-ups. Make sure you’re working to suit your genre or mood.

Question Your Tools

Depending on what kind of writer you are, you may construct your profiles very differently to someone else.

Whatever you find easiest and most efficient to use should be what you always use. Your chosen tools should serve you more than they serve anybody else. Use whatever type of word processor, notebook or writing utensils you prefer when it comes to recording information. Choose a font that you find comfortable to read - most people prefer rounded fonts like comic sans or typewriter fonts, as their eyes can process the characters a little bit faster. If writing by hand, be mindful of your handwriting so that you’re presenting the information in a way that reads very efficiently. For some, whether or not they use cursive can make a big difference based on whether or not they prefer to read cursive. You might even choose to write some things in all-caps or in different colours.

Even your writing utensil can make a difference - does your pen give bold, easy to read characters? Is your font the right size, digitally or on paper, to present the information effectively? Take some time to adjust your formatting so that your character profile will be easy on the eyes for you personally, and will serve as the kind of reference you are most comfortable with.

Ask yourself, is this necessary?

You’ll naturally start by writing out their name, age and other really simple information. Now it’s time to ask yourself what you actually need and what you don’t.

You wouldn’t want to over clutter your profile and make it difficult to refer to. It’s very important that your profile is easy to use as reference. Each time you’re including a statistic or feature ask yourself if it’s necessary. Do you need to include the character’s height to show clear differences when making visuals? Do you need to mention who their family is or will their family not appear in the story? Do you need to mention specifics about their physical appearance or will we not see their face?

Everything you include should be somehow necessary or functional. Whether this is just to aid the visual aspects or to enhance the story’s plot, ask yourself if it’s needed before you include it. Whether or not things are needed will vary based on what you’ll use the profile for, which is why this is the optimal step to take after defining purpose. You will need to create boundaries for yourself based on how much you think would be too much, and how much you actually need.

Precision and Concision.

Not only will you need to ask yourself what information to record, but also in how much detail.

Will you record measurements in metric or imperial? Will you need to include the character’s entire date of birth or just their age? Is there a more concise way to record the same information to make it easier to read and find?

It might be tempting to either rush through the profile and keep things relatively minimal, or to get very stuck in and fill in all fields in a lot of detail. However, both of these can limit the function of your profile. A very bare-bones profile might not contain enough and you may forget to include a detail that’s vital to the story. On the other hand, a profile that’s extremely detailed can become very lengthy and hard to navigate. Both of these problems could slow down your writing process as finding key traits of your character is harder.

It’s usually a good idea to include detail in some fields but not in others, and to write things in an easy to read note format. Including sub-headings in bold font, using lists and brackets, and even using coloured highlighting can help keep your character profile precise and to-the-point. Be mindful while constructing the profile, and trim down wordier phrases into things that are easy to quickly spot and utilise. Try to get as much information as you can into your profile in as few words as you are comfortable with using.

Serve your profile’s function efficiently by trying to store just the right amount of information and formatting it in whatever user-friendly way that you prefer. 

Put it somewhere that serves you.

Where you put your character profiles is an equally important thing to think about, because it will depend on your work flow.

Some artists prefer to keep accounts on sites like DeviantArt and ToyHouse, where they store and share information on their characters easily. This can be extremely useful for the creator who frequently collaborates - if you commission artworks and writing about your characters often it may be a good idea to create a page like this. You could even build yourself a website with a free hosting service, create an online document via something like google documents or create a password-protected tumblr page. This will depend on how private you want the information to be. Some sites, like World Anvil for example, exist specifically to store information on your fictional universe. This is recommended for those who will be building anything expansive.

If you’re working on your project especially privately, you might never need to use the internet to store these things. Maybe creating a folder on your computer to store all the image and/or text files will serve you nicely enough. Maybe a physical notebook will work for you, if you prefer analogue work over digital. This is a good idea if you are nervous about information being lost or stolen.

Make sure you are thoughtful in where you store your character information - maintaining your particular work flow can be vital for creatives depending on how motivation works for their particular brain.