After I finish writing a book—regardless as to whether it’s succeeded or failed, or had the opportunity to do either—I usually spend some time unpacking what I can learn about myself, my process, and my writing. This helps me solidify the things I’ve learned, identify the areas I’d like to improve, as well figure out what I want to work on next.
- Identify Your Strengths, and how they shined (or didn’t) in the last project. Start by revisiting your positive feedback. What aspects of your writing do people seem to appreciate the most? What aspects of writing that book did you love working on the most? How could your next book better embrace your strengths and loves? Think about what kinds of scenes and characters you’re good at writing, as well as what kinds of books your particular skills and voice lend themselves to.
- Identify Your Weaknesses, and how they affected your last project. Start by revisiting your negative feedback. With more distance, what can you learn from it? It doesn’t matter if the comment was right or wrong—you’re using the comments as prompts to think critically about your writing, what it is and what it isn’t, and what you’d like it to be. Is there anything—a technique or a skill—you want for your writing that you don’t have? Is there anything you would think twice about before including in your next project?
- Examine Your Choices. Use your identified strengths and weaknesses to examine why you made the choices you did last manuscript. For example, if you identified that your strength is writing character interactions, and you wrote a book that features a character who is solitary most of the time—why did you make that choice? Was it a conscious choice to work on improving writing solitary characters? If so, what improvements were made? If, on the other hand, it was simply necessary for the story you wanted to tell, ask yourself if you would make that same choice a second time.
Likewise, it’s good to question any scenes you really disliked writing. You can look for ways to love them, or you can choose to write stories that don’t have them. It’s your choice. But make it intentionally, preferably before you start writing. - Examine Your Cravings. What have you been craving? Do you miss writing in a particular genre, tone, or kind of scene? Did a side character from your last book give you a taste for writing a particular kind of character for your next book? Think about what movies, music, books, and art are resonating with you, and why. Pull together the picture of what you want, and stretch it across the frame of what you’re good at—and what you’re not.
- Extend These Questions to Process. What are the strengths of your current process? What did you enjoy about the process of writing your last book? Were there any parts of your process that didn’t work for you—that had negative outcomes, either on you or your book? Examine the choices you made—are there any changes you’d like to make for your next book? And think about your cravings—those Saturday mornings writing before the world wakes; the pure joy of writing from your gut—and what changes you could make in your life and process to satisfy them?
Our experience writing changes as we ourselves change. Books tend to take months if not years to write—and they change you. You’re a different person afterward than you were before. And looking at that trajectory is one of the best ways to figure out where you want to go next—and more importantly, how you’re going to get there.
