The Dreaded Question Every Author Knows Too Well

There are many questions authors get asked when someone discovers what we do for a living. Some are wonderful. Some are curious. Some are slightly alarming.

And then there is the one question that makes every author pause, smile politely, and begin frantically rearranging the truth in their head.

“What’s your writing process like?”

Now, on the surface, this seems like a very reasonable question. Logical even. Professional. It suggests notebooks filled with careful outlines, color-coded cue cards, neat timelines pinned to corkboards, and perhaps a thoughtful cup of tea steaming beside a laptop while the author nods wisely at their own genius.

If you ask me this question in public, that is exactly the answer you will get.

Oh yes. There will be plotting. There will be structure. I will describe character arcs and narrative beats. There will be references to linear timelines and carefully planned story progression. I may even mention cue cards, because cue cards sound impressive and vaguely academic.

All of this will sound extremely professional.

Because the real answer is… slightly harder to explain.

The real answer is that writing often involves sitting quietly in a chair while having long, emotionally complex conversations with people who do not exist.

People I invented.

People whose entire lives I control.

People to whom I have given backstories, secrets, relationships, and, occasionally, deeply inconvenient emotional trauma.

And there I am, staring into space, mentally arguing with them.

“Why would you say that?”
“Because that’s what my character would say.”
“You gave them that personality!”
“Yes, but now they won’t cooperate!”

This is the strange and wonderful secret behind writing fiction. The characters begin as tiny ideas, and then suddenly they are walking around inside your head, interrupting your day, changing your plans, and occasionally refusing to behave.

Sometimes they wake you up at three in the morning because they’ve decided a scene should go differently.

Sometimes they inform you that the person you thought was the villain is actually misunderstood.

Sometimes they refuse to follow the outline you so carefully created.

And sometimes, they simply start talking.

If you’re a writer, you know exactly what I mean.

You can be washing dishes, walking the dog, or staring at the ceiling at night when suddenly two fictional people start having a conversation in your head about something dramatic, mysterious, or emotionally complicated.

And you are merely the poor soul tasked with writing it all down.

The funniest part is that readers imagine authors as powerful puppet masters controlling every element of the story.

But the truth?

Half the time we are chasing our own characters around the plot yelling, “Please come back here and follow the timeline!”

It is both ridiculous and magical.

And yes, when someone asks about “the process,” we absolutely try to make it sound respectable.

We talk about structure.

We talk about narrative flow.

We talk about pacing.

We definitely do not say, “Well, yesterday two imaginary people argued in my head for forty minutes about whether they should open a mysterious attic door.”

Because that sounds… slightly unhinged.

And yet, that is often where the best scenes come from.

The truth is that writing is part craft, part imagination, and part wonderful chaos. It’s equal measures planning and surprise. Some days you follow your outline perfectly, and other days your characters hijack the entire story and run off in a completely different direction.

Those are usually the best days.

So the next time someone asks an author about their “process,” listen carefully. You may hear a beautifully structured explanation about plotting methods and storytelling frameworks.

But somewhere behind that polished answer is a writer quietly thinking:

“Yes, yes, very professional… but honestly I just sit there and talk to imaginary people.”

And if you ever catch an author smiling mysteriously while staring into space, don’t worry.

They’re probably just having a conversation.

With someone who doesn’t technically exist.

Yet.