Frank Peretti Quotes

I outline and outline and outline, and then I'm very specific about the stuff I write. That's my process.

I'm still undisciplined in the fact that I'm not writing anything down. I just get these lines and start piecing it together and then going back.

The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying.

Don't write outlines; I hate outlines.

I like to have a title before I start writing.

Outlining is like putting on training wheels. It gives me the courage to write, but we always go off the outline.

Even if you plan your book, the actual writing is unplanned.

I'm always writing; I'm always jotting things down on paper or making notes in my iPhone. Then I'll make myself sit down and kind of shape it up, but there's really no other way to practice other than onstage.

I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.

I don't do much rewriting, because each paragraph is very carefully put together.

The writing process for me is pretty much always the same - it's a solitary experience.

I probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written.

I am such a rewriter; I have so many notebooks filled with drafts you wouldn't believe.

After I finish writing a chapter, I'll print it out, cut it up into paragraphs, and cut away any transition sentences. Then I shuffle all the paragraphs and lay them out as they come. As I arrange and hold them next to each other, very quickly a natural structure for the chapter presents itself.

I write everything out in longhand in one fast go. And then I throw out the first few and start over again. By the end of the first draft, the whole thing's messy and disgusting and horrible, but you really understand the foundational stuff.

I like to write from scratch most of the time, but I like to have a backup plan just in case.

I have to re-write a lot. I couldn't tell you how many drafts I write, but I know I've done at least twenty rewrites on each book.

I feel confident writing on my feet with improv, but it's different when you're sitting down and writing it out.

The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.

Basically I started to jot notes, lots of faxes back and forth to my writer, we faxed ideas throughout the whole first draft, and started all over again.

The writing process, it's too mysterious to try and describe.

I'm a big fan of outlining. Here's the theory: If I outline, then I can see the mistakes I'm liable to make. They come out more clearly in the outline than they do in the pages.

And that's how I start myself. I usually go back a couple of pages, maybe to the beginning of the chapter, and I start reading. And as I'm reading, I'm tweaking - putting in a different word, changing the syntax, putting that clause over there, you know that sort of thing.

When it comes to sermon writing, generally there are two problems. Some preachers love the research stage but hate the writing, and they start writing too late. Others don't like doing research, so they move way too fast to the writing part.

I am a big proponent of writing a great outline. That way you can avoid hitting a roadblock. There is no worse feeling than writing yourself into a corner but if you've figured it all out in the outline then you won't have that problem.