Writing Tool: TK

Nobody can fluently write a story all in one setting. Most of the time, we sit down, we write and then we find something that stumps us. Maybe this is the name of a character or place, maybe this is a description we haven’t thought about, maybe it’s even an entire chunk of the story that’s either not cooperating or we just have an itch to skip over to a certain part. That is where the magic of “TK” comes in. 

TK is a placeholder phrase short for “to come” but is written with a K so it is more easily visible to the eye when editing/writing. We use TK when we are stuck but still need to continue writing. There really is no rule for it, but usually TK is written with a parenthesis and what you will need to fill in later. For example, “She turned to face (TK name).” It’s a way of continuing the writing process without having to stop to open all the name meaning websites and the next three hours picking a name. 

I tend to use this with things like background descriptions, especially since that is a writing weakness of mine. I prefer dialogue and action, and when I’m writing I often use TK with any initial thoughts but then wait until after I’ve finished writing my scene to then go back and write in any description I’ve missed. 

But this can also be used for larger ideas like tricky transitions or even entire scenes. A famous example for me and Kamryn is one of our chapters in Visionary. We had an entire chapter as TK with a one-sentence description because it was giving us so much trouble and we didn’t want to think about it. We actually wrote the entire rest of the novel before going back and filling in the scene, which also helped us know what we needed to include in the chapter we skipped. Without it our writing would have most definitely would have been halted and who knows how long we would have wasted.

Now, sometimes when we’re stuck like that on a scene it could be an issue with the scene itself (you can find a post about this here) and a TK is not going to fix that. In fact, sometimes it could make the issue worse if a re-write is necessary. Our TK of an entire chapter was a risky move and there were things we later had to go back and rewrite later on to make sure everything flowed nicely, but as always with writing, be prepared to rewrite everything. 

This will primarily be used in your initial draft of your manuscript. First drafts are especially daunting, since it’s easier to fill in a scene already started than it is to come up with something entirely original. But by the time you’re finished with your second draft, you’ll want to make sure you’ve addressed every TK (you can search your document specifically for TK which is also why it’s helpful to use the same key phrase). 

For partner writing, Kamryn and I also used TK as an indicator of places where we might need assistance from each other. During the process of writing our second novel, we each were assigned to write every other chapter. Kamrny would tackle odd chapters and I would tackle even. When we were writing separately there were times where we would come across a topic where we needed the opinion of the other on how to address a certain subject or we were stuck and needed to fill in a section. When the other would leave a TK, we would know that we either needed to have a discussion or the other person needed to assist with their chapter. 

TK is one of our favorite writing tools and we hope that it becomes yours as well. So get those drafts done, stop leaving parenthesis all over your manuscript and we’ll see you next week! Write-on!