Warning: This post is written more technically than my normal style.
Author Flow. According to the Writing Center of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, they’re specifying flow within writing.
They state things like Chronological patterning (timeline of past to present or even future). They discuss grouping ideas, moving from small to large, and other pattern-focused writing styles. Link
According to Writer’s Digest, authorial flow in writing has more to do with rhythm, pacing, and style. The article’s author also states, with confidence, that they can’t define it; they just know it when they see it. Link
The late Gary Provost, an absolute wizard regarding Prose, says the following. You’ll have to forgive me for using the quote in its entirety; it’s simply that good.
Gary Provost: November 14th, 1944-May 10th, 1995.
“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
Link to where I found the quote: Link
I like to use that quote when explaining sentence structure to my students. Sentence structure, an oft-forgotten element of writing and English parenthetical emphasis, is incredibly important. It tells you when to breath, when to wait…and when to read through the entirety of its length in a blistering sprint to the end.
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So, what’s the point?
Excellent question, me.
I define Authorial flow in two different ways: Written and Mental.
The experts above define written flow. Provost’s sentence structure is hugely important. If I wrote the same sentence type for every word and didn’t allow for variation, it would be incredibly annoying.
Jack jumped at the sound. Jack then leaped into the bushes. The squirrels ran out into the light. They searched for him.
It doesn’t matter how good the story or action is. It becomes boring if you write every sentence, line, with the same structure. Variation improves flow, but that has to be done consciously. I suggest reviewing for sentence variety during editing and not during the second type of flow.
Chronological writing isn’t flow-based to me. That’s just proper English. However, we tend to write adjectives in a certain order. According to Proedit.com (Link), the order is as follows: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. It’s a hidden rule in English. You do it, and you don’t know you’re doing it. Below are two examples:
Proper order: The ancient, small, round, red, Italian, wooden, decorative box.
Improper order: The round, decorative, red, ancient, Italian, wooden, small box.
The second one doesn’t look right to you, does it?
So, there’s a flow to adjectives as well.
Writing flow involves the following, coalesced from all I’ve read and studied:
- Adjective order
- Sentence variation
- Detail, but not too much detail. Know when to move on.
- Clear writing. No murkiness and strange text that takes difficulty to decipher.
- Proper patterning, as Chapel Hill pointed out.
- Paragraphs end when that specific idea ends. Same with sentences. A sentence reaches its natural conclusion when the idea it contains has run its course.
- Sentences transition from one to another with logic and reason.
- Active voice use if possible. Passive voice for character stylistic writing is perfectly normal.
- Tone is a big one that people forget. If the majority of the chapter is somber, and sudden levity springs forth, it has to be focused on, or it’s going to throw off the reader.
CERTAINLY, there is more to add to the list. However, I feel like if you follow those general rules, you should have a great flow to any writing you place. Now, onto flow #2.
Flow #2: Authorial or Mental flow
Flow #2, or Mental flow, is the author entering a state of writing that is almost zenlike. It goes by many different names, but to me, it’s still a flow. It’s a river, swinging from side to side, rushing along the banks. A bit of airflow drifting through the branches as leaves sigh, falling to their destination.
Mental flow is a difficult state for many people to reach. For me, personally, it is less difficult to enter it, and more difficult to stay in it. I feel like I have a timer. The moment I enter the flow, I grow very upset if anything brings me out of it. Here’s how I enter my mental flow and splash 1-2k words to a page within an hour (Webserialist).
- I re-read my previous chapter
- Check my plot notes so I know where I’m going
- Put classical music onto my Spotify. Any words that appear in songs tend to throw me off unless it’s operatic
- I then put myself into my protagonist’s shoes. What are they wearing? What were they just thinking? Where are they? How would they react to the plot going where they’re going to go.
- Then, I don’t think, I just write. Write till my brain shuts off and I’m done for the day. Could be 2k words (short day), could be 10k words (long). It just depends.
Mental flow is tricky. The biggest thing I tell my students, is the following:
Don’t think, Just write.
Don’t think, Just write
Making errors? Fix it after.
Character doesn’t sound like they normally do? Fix it after.
When I re-read my previous chapter, preferentially, I spend time fixing any errors I may have found. They’re almost always minor, because when I’m done writing for the day, I send the completed chapters to my Beta Readers to find errors I can’t see myself. Authorial blindness is real.
However, my point stands. If you’re pausing every five minutes to fix an error in your writing, you’re losing that “flow” state. It’s ducking and slipping out of reach. The wrote the majority of this article, and I’m posting it still in a rough draft form, within only about 10-15 minutes. Yes, I prepped the links before hand, but the actual writing portion of it is left in its raw state. That, for me, is mental flow. I write the first thing that comes to mind, and I don’t stop till I need to.
I used to be a HUGE plotter and worldbuilding. And do you know what happened? Nothing. I did so much Worldbuilding it felt like I didn’t know how to let my characters grow. Swapping to a semi-fluid state between plotting and pantsing was the best decision I’ve ever made as an author. It just makes my life so so much easier.
Small guidelines to tell me where the plot is going, have an idea of how you want the book to end, then…BOOM, go.
It won’t work for everyone, but it certainly works for me.
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