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Writing - how does it work for you?
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Yes! I jot something down because I’ve suddenly had a brilliant idea and it only takes me seconds to write it, and then I look at it the next day and I realize I have to fix it so it’s more understandable to others; because of course it makes sense to me. Ha ha
Being a retired software engineer, I'm more of a planner than a seat-of-the-pants writer. I spend about 3 months researching and outlining a book and developing character profiles before I start drafting. That doesn't mean I don't deviate from the plan once I start writing, but if I do, I replan to make sure it all works before I continue with the text.
Beth, your outlining process very likely works better to assure continuity than what my process was. There weren't many, but a couple times my reviewing caught in-story anachronisms, places where someone did something that interacted with actions by another character who hadn't done his part yet to get where he needed to be . . . hmmm, that sentence is sort of wandering off into never-never land; hope you know what I mean.I've heard that Robert Heinlein was a pre-planner at first, anyway. Supposedly he had a huge timeline chart that covered all of one wall in his writery. It sketched out the events and characters of his books. The characters in his later ones had a lot of interactions across time that had to be kept straight.
Later in his career he came to believe that what flowed from his pen(so to speak) is what should go between the covers; he stopped believing in rewrites. I think that was the self-serving decision of a popular writer, and the product, IMHO, suffered for it. I didn't care for his later stuff because of it.
Kent
I like to write notes for several months before I sit down to do the actual formal writing. I find better and fresher ideas emerge when i'm looking at multiple options on a page of notes.Also, I was working on a second book a year ago and after writing 122 manuscript pages decided I wanted it in third person instead of first... i've been puting off fixing that even to this day :(
Excuse me, I feel bad about my laziness now and must excuse myself to the corner lol
Mod
For me it starts with an idea, a situation, then the journey begins. I know how the book starts and I know how the book will end. For me it is a matter of sitting down and typing the path that connects the two; never knowing what that path will be until my fingers hit the keys.
I tried to do the outline bit, but it was way to ridged for me and did not allow me to be creative. I don't like the idea of plotting the whole thing out; I prefer that it takes a life of its own and tells me where we are going. From my experience if I can get lost in the story as I write it then readers will do the same as they read.
I am geting a lot of ideas about the way to initiate the process of writing! But the inspiration and imagination are fundamental we do something valid. Thanks
Hmmm How does writing work for me?Well... Usually it starts with a character. I'll be sitting around, doing nothing, and BAM there's this random image in my head, of this strange person in some strange place. And I wonder what this character is doing there, and how he/she got there, and how he/she is going to deal with it. And then the character has a name, and other characters that influence him/her, and a story. Then the sentences start flowing and chapters start writing themselves in my head. So I have to sit down and make a quick outline, and then I start writing the first chapter. Sometimes I'll have an entire story developed in my head in, like, one day. Sometimes it will take me years. It's always different, but that's basically how it goes.
I guess I start with an idea - and I have to jot it down as ideas come and go - and I can never remember them again when I need them...When I get time to write I look at my notes and start planning out how I can use them. Sometimes a story is so strong that it keeps going through my head and I will use it as it is. But more often it comes to me in bits and pieces.Dianne Ascroft,
author, 'Hitler and Mars Bars'
I guess I start with an idea - and I have to jot it down as ideas come and go - and I can never remember them again when I need them...When I get time to write I look at my notes and start planning out how I can use them. Sometimes a story is so strong that it keeps going through my head and I will use it as it is. But more often it comes to me in bits and pieces.Dianne Ascroft,
author, 'Hitler and Mars Bars'
I'm a big believer in planning, but...Sometimes the inspiration that has me reaching for a pen and paper manifests itself in a less-than-great first paragraph. It may be technically correct and fully formed, but I've come to expect that the creative engine is just revving up. The best thing to do, it seems, is to keep moving forward and write a few more pages. The first paragraph can be edited or removed later.
Kent wrote: "In all truth, I hardly felt like I wrote the book at all."This sentence surprises me. Please don’t take this as a criticism; I’m just trying to see if I can understand what you meant. It makes you sound very detached from your work. My books are pure fiction and yet I still felt like I was putting a little piece of myself out there for others to read. A finished work is very personal to me and I’ve heard from other authors that they felt the same way.
It's different for different people, I guess. I kind of understand what Kent means, and sometimes I feel the same way, like, "I can't believe it was me that wrote this!" Sometimes I feel like my characters take control of my story and make it their own. But I am by no means "detached" from my work; writing is my LIFE, and I don't know who I'd be without it. When I'm not writing, I'm always thinking about writing.I guess what attaches me most to my work is my characters, because I become very attached to them, almost as if they were real people. My stories are very character-driven, so the fictional people who I create really control the story sometimes.
Although, I understand what Amanda is talking about, too. There are small pieces of me scattered through my writing; I can see myself reflected in a few of my characters.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I understand both Kent's and Amanda's views; there's always a part of me that knows and sees and understands that I've written a book, but I don't feel as if I should give all the credit to myself; I owe it to others as well, including my characters.
But, I don't know. I'm only fifteen. Maybe it will change when I'm older.
Hello Kent, Phoebebb, Beth, Sean, James, Carlos, Brigid, Dianne, Kevin, Amanda, and everyone.I plan. Before I wrote my novel, Reason Reigns, I made decisions. As a fiction writer, I decided to be a Romantic Realist novelist, then read up on the four essential attributes of a novel:
1) Theme
2) Plot
3) Characterization
4) Style
I thought of the qualities of the books that pleasure me - I defined my writing principles.
I decided:
- to write about a serious theme (literature) that could be enjoyed by readers of all ages.
- to project values; to construct a purposeful progression of logically connected events depicting the values of characters and their actions to achieve them.
- to achieve characterization by means of action and dialogue; to SHOW what a character does and what he says (as opposed to asserting his nature). Gradually, or at the end of my novel, I must reveal the motivation of my characters. My characterization has to be consistent.
- to use the reality-oriented literary style (instead of the emotion-oriented)
*
Then I planned my novel. I thought up its theme (purpose), then the plot. I integrated them into a plot-theme (the link between the theme and the events of a novel; the central conflict or “situation” of a story).
I thought up essential traits of characters consistent with the plot-theme.
In writing Reason Reigns, I integrated my choices of content and words (fundamental elements of a literary style) to my plot-theme and characterization. I always reminded myself that every scene must advance the theme, that every sentence must have a purpose consistent with the plot-theme and characterization, that the four attributes of my novel have to be integrated.
*
The Happy & Brainy group has a "Literature" folder.
That's the way it is for me. My first novels, really just parts of a story larger than any single book could be, were very much like that. I have often said that they wanted to get written, and I was just the author who happened to be in the way. I started with one character and one sentence, and then said "Now what?" I discovered what by spinning out the story logic and the character logic, with the occasional creative nudge from me. I have a slew of short stories that I wrote very much along those lines, except that they were written to a theme provided by someone else. Themed contests, themed anthologies, even one where my story was the prize, written about the winner of someone else's contest.
My latest MS is the hardest, since it didn't speak to me until after I'd finished it, and then it spoke up long enough to tell me I'd done it wrong.
Amanda, I understand your puzzlement, but believe me, I am not detached from my work. It's just that the composing of it is not a chore; it's more as though someone has poured it into my brain and it's there, waiting to get out through my fingers. Part of that ease comes, I'm certain, because the characters I write are so closely drawn from characters I've known and the action from experiences I've had. I admit that the young protagonist is a composite of me: me at the time as I was; me as I wish I had been; and me as I should have been. Nobody but my former wife knows which parts are which . With that in mind, Brigid and I have something in common; there are bits of ourselves scattered throughout the book.
It is all fiction, but every bit of it is inspired by events and real people. I don't know what will become of The Muse when my well of experiences and characters runs dry.
The best I can say is that it's all been a novel experience.
Kent
Ok, I just rescently wrote a flash fiction story with unsual tense and sci-fi. How do I post it, without copyright infrindgement? I have nothing copywrited so I am not sure what to do about internet sharing. Please help because I'd love to share it for feedback! Thanks.
Consider creative commons, if you want to spell out exactly what other people can and cannot do with your posted story. Many online publications will also insist on certain rights for a period of time, after which all rights revert to you.
I literally sleep on it. I dream my novels. Course, it helps to be a lucid dreamer. If I'm thinking hard about a novel throughout the day, I'll usually dream about writing and reading my novel while I'm asleep - and yes I do read and write in my dreams and the characters aren't flip flopped like psychiatrists try to have you believe.I think over every possible angle, every possible motivation. It's like playing chess against yourself. I am better at seeing the flaws of a character, if I think that I'm another character.
When I write, I set my word processor to 5x7 novel format with .5" margins (WordPerfect 12 or OpenOffice which seems to be improving vastly over WP and MO). I then write in type 10 font.
That way I can visualize how much writing I'm actually doing, and balance that against what I need to do and what I have done.
I start with an opening, an idea, a what-if situation, and go from there. Usually I write out whatever the idea is and stash it for later reference. I have about twenty such openings saved right now.You find though, after writing a few novels, and I'm currently working on number 16, that each story comes out of you differently. While one may pour forth like water, literally writing itself, others are like pulling teeth, a lot of misfires and writing down the wrong paths and backtracking.
I'm a seat of the pants writer and never know from one sentence to the next what will happen, what my characters will do or say, or even which characters will show up and steal the show. That happened most notably in Threads, a Blaine Horney Mystery, where I had no plans whatsoever to write about Blaine, but as one of my antagonists topped the hill, I knew the cowboy who was sitting in the Jaguar with the map spread over the steering wheel. Knew immediately. I was so flabbergasted I simply couldn't write for a day until I accepted the fact that he was there and wasn't going away. Then he proceeded to take over the story and I understood that this book in particular was actually the first book of the series, the prequel to the book I'd already written about him. Good thing I really like him or I might've been mad...LOL...no sense trying to fight your characters though. They have ways of retaliating you can't imagine until they do...LOL...
Another time, to the last line of the scene, I couldn't believe what I was writing, I just couldn't accept the fact that these characters were going to die. I cried for an hour after typing the period on the last line and then I couldn't write for a day because I was mourning them. Even now, when I read the scene, I cry. Yet I know that, just like me, the reader is going to disbelieve in the same manner I did, and possibly even cry over that scene and the loss of two fine people.
I so love being a writer. I'm a fly on the wall, recording the story, and the less I intrude, the better the flow.
Mari
Oh, wow. I know what you mean about killing characters off. I don't do it often. But one time, I killed off this character who I had grown really attached to. I couldn't get myself to write his death scene; I stared at the computer screen for an hour before I could painfully start to type my way through it. Then, of course, I started crying in the middle of writing it. And when it was finally done, I felt utterly depressed for the rest of the day. It's amazing how these people you create can end up meaning so much to you.
:( in my short story Sally, the little girl dies of lukemia and Sally is the "demon" who is really her guardian angel.I can't edit the story :(
is too sad :(
It's my personal belief that if you want the readers to care, you have to care. If you want the readers to feel anything at all, you have to feel it first, while you're writing it. I run into a lot of writers who keep the reader at arm's length in their work because they don't understand that to write well, you have to feel deeply, whether that's happiness or sorrow or all points in between. And some folk who would be writers are just not comfortable probing their own depths. No one is entirely comfortable with it really, I don't think, but then to me that's the line--you either leap off the cliff into the abyss of your personal brave unknown or settle for skirting the edge. The leap can lead to greatness, while the edge is always mediocrity.
I don't ever make formal outlines. Still, I think out what's going to happen in a scene before I write it. I want to be concerned not with what happens next, but with language.It doesn't much matter if it comes fast, or slow. Everything gets rewritten.
I start with a story idea, something I have read or seen that sparks an idea. Usually I know the ending before anything else. Don't know why. The beginning and middle change and rearrange in the re-writing/editing process but the ending always stays the same.
This is a very interesting matter. How the writers act in preparing and processing their writing.Possibly the usual readers are not concerned with the way the writer organize the book, but this is also very important to know how things work.
Thanks for sharing your process of writing and creation.
Nex time I read a book I will try to understand not only the content of the story but also the writer mind!
James said:"I don't like the idea of plotting the whole thing out; I prefer that it takes a life of its own and tells me where we are going. From my experience if I can get lost in the story as I write it then readers will do the same as they read."
James, I didn't digest that comment back in August when you made it, but upon a re-read of it something jumps out at me.
You and I have similar approaches to writing, and comments I've received from readers of my book validate what you say in the last sentence of the quote above. Everyone who has commented to me about Tracks in the Sand has said that they just fell into the story almost immediately, reading one chapter after another because they were involved with one or another of the characters and really had to see what happened to the object of their interest.
Until I re-read your post I hadn't made the connection between my immersion in the writing and theirs in the reading.
Thanks. That will be a useful barometer for me to watch when I write.
Kent
My first book's just been released. It's a fact book, so planning was important. I had to have everything laid out before I began, and I didn't deviate much from that original plan. The book I'm currently working on, however, is a work of fiction, and my approach is very different. I knew what the ending would be from the outset, and that's what I've aimed at as I've been writing, but the twists and turns the story's taken along the way have developed of their own accord. I like not knowing what's going to happen next, and I like the characters to have a life of their own.
For me, it all starts with a simple idea. I'll jot it down and go from there. Over several weeks ideas for characters, locations, troubles, lifestyles, etc. will pop up and I'll write them down as well. After all of that has slowed (it never stops), I start on a loose outline of the story's beginning. I don't like to outline the whole book because my writing is always character based. Meaning that the characters dictate what happens in their lives and how things will work out. I like to let them take the lead, and I just sit back and write it all down.
Sometimes I'll know the ending and just let the characters work their way to it. Other times I just know the beginning and surprise myself with the ending. It all depends on the characters.
I was chatting with another author last night and we were joking around about how only other writers can understand the concept of our characters talking to us. People would think we were crazy if they heard half of what we say about these people on paper.
I have always thought that a character needs to be real to the author in order for he or she to be real to the reader. If we don't feel connected to our characters, then how will the readers ever feel connected to them?
Okay, that's enough of my ramblings for today. :-)
Christie
A short story is like a two-storey house with a basement while a novel is like a skyscraper. It is inefficient and foolish to build a two-storey house without a design. One can’t build a skyscraper without designing it first. Before an architect could design a building, he must know its function. A design for a hospital differs from an airport’s. In the same way, the architect of a novel, the author, must determine the function or theme of his story. Then, form follows function.
A building cannot stand without foundations – the architect of a novel must build the framework, or the plot, first. In doing so, he must think in essentials. What does he want to write about? Why? How will he achieve the answer to the why?
After a firm, integrated framework is in place, that is, after logically connected essentials that advance the theme are in place (i.e. plot), it would be much easier to think about the details.
I too merely feel like I'm along for the ride when it comes to writing a book. Once inspiration strikes, I have to put pen to page and get it down quickly. It's as if I'm sitting down with good friends for coffee and they're telling me a story. Once that stage passes though and the first draft is intact, I can look at it objectively and use the tools of the craft to shape it for the reader...or at least TRY to!!! Easier said than done.Best
Kathy-Diane
http://kathy-dianeleveille.com
Roads Unravelling: Short Stories
Lacking any formal training in writing or literature, I stumbled into my technique. After the fact, I found out it is one of the recognized ways that books get written.
What I happened to do in the case of my book was put a couple of credible characters into a credible situation and push them along for a couple of chapters. Then one day they suddenly took life themselves and began living the story - I was just along as the recorder.
From time to time I introduced a wild card, a bad guy, for instance, or a victim, and the story would reshape itself to his presence without effort (or at least, much effort) from me.
In all truth, I hardly felt like I wrote the book at all. I'd wake up at 3:00am, or have mental jolt in the middle of the afternoon, with the characters talking, and I'd have to write what they were saying and record what they thought and were up to. It got to the point that I carried a Palm PDA and collapsible keyboard with me just so I could sit down and write at any moment. It made business meetings awkward sometimes, but fortunately, I retired before it became a real problem.
The hard part was keeping up with the generation of new material and editing it into smooth readability and assuring credibility. It was a case of write for one day, then spend two days tearing it apart and restructuring. The book was "done" long before it was "finished."
Does that sound familiar to anyone?
Kent