riting wrandomly

[rec]

When an author decides not to publish his novel serially--in weekly or periodic chapters--and waits until a novel is finished, he opens up the possiblity of what I call 'writing randomly." I think there are a number of advantages of writing randomly.

 

Writing randomly is not necessarily writing chaotically. The author has to have an outline or a good notion of how the novel he's writing is to be structured. But he doesn't have to write it starting at Chapter 1 and ending at Chapter 19. He can start wherever he wants--in the middle, at the beginning, at the end or anywhere in between.

 

A caution: writing this way is not for every author, by any means, but it is an approach that works for me.

 

I consider the scenes of a story like an island in a volcanic archipelago. Each scene is an island that keeps growing over time. Ultimately the islands are connected together, but for a time they are independent of one another. Under random writing, scenes in a story are independent islands, but they are finally linked together as the novel is finished.

 

I see a number of advantages to writing randomly, particularly when the entire novel is continually under flux.

 

1. At least for me, a scene is never entirely out of mind; ideas to change or improve a scene can occur at any time between the start and completion of the novel. A scene is never finished until the novel is near completion. Thus, new ideas and approaches can be incorporated in each of the major scenes.

2. Details of a scene can be added when the author thinks of something that can enliven a scene. As I visualize a scene from time to time during the writing, I often think of details that I didn't include at the outset.

3. Ideas and approaches can be moved from scene to scene. For example, in my new project, Palouse, which involves the love between a prodigy musician and a gay fellow musician, I have a line that I intend to use. At first, I thought it could be used in a face-to-face between the musician and his gay admirer: "I play Bach. You are a messenger of Bach." The same idea can be used in another key scene between this gay man and the prodigy's mother to convince her of the importance of the relationship between her son and the gay man. If I had committed to writing the novel serially--and releasing it that way--the choice of where to use it might have been foreclosed.

 

There are some disadvantages, of course.

 

1. Putting the scenes together may require careful editing, plus an amount of cogent writing to join them.

2. Finishing the story requires discipline. The danger is that the story may never come together "perfectly." A periodic deadline for chapters may force the author to keep working toward completion of a story, but if the story is written randomly, there is a tendency to never finish it. That is, there are always scenes that can be changed and "improvements" that can be made.

[Graeme]

I use a hybrid approach. Whenever I'm stuck on a chapter, or just need a break, I tend to work on a future scene. I then drop that scene into the appropriate chapter when I get to that point. The scene almost always needs a bit of adjustment to make it fit neatly, but it means that having a block on one chapter doesn't mean I stop -- I just work on another part of the story until I'm ready to go back.

 

I've been doing this since I started. The very first scene I ever wrote (I did it as a test to see if I was capable of putting into words the emotions of a scene I had in my mind) didn't appear until chapter 8. That scene had a lot of work on it and the final product is a lot better than the original, but I've had people tell me it's the best scene in the entire story, and that's because I worked on it, refined it, modified it and tweaked it for eight chapters before I finally used it.

[Lugh]

oy!

 

would you believe these writing styles actually have names?

 

Linear writing is what those who post weekly serials usually do. They write the story from front to back with little to no diversions (unless they get stuck then they may skip ahead somewhat) This can involve an outline.. or not. (Those two types have other names!)

 

Organic writing is when the author writes all the scenes, but in a random order. (Another author calls this "candy bar" writing because most new writers tend to write the 'good scenes' then skimp on the connections, so reading it is like eating a series of candy bars... not quite sure I totally understand that philosophy)

 

Now the other two writing styles are determined by if you plot or not...

 

If you do plot... you are a plotter (duh!)

If you do not... you are pantser (from the term 'flying by the seat of your pants')

 

 

 

Personally, I'm an organic pantser... which explains why I rarely finish things, eh?

[rec]

Some people might think that all writing at GA is organic.

 

rec

 

oy!

 

would you believe these writing styles actually have names?

 

Linear writing is what those who post weekly serials usually do. They write the story from front to back with little to no diversions (unless they get stuck then they may skip ahead somewhat) This can involve an outline.. or not. (Those two types have other names!)

 

Organic writing is when the author writes all the scenes, but in a random order. (Another author calls this "candy bar" writing because most new writers tend to write the 'good scenes' then skimp on the connections, so reading it is like eating a series of candy bars... not quite sure I totally understand that philosophy)

 

Now the other two writing styles are determined by if you plot or not...

 

If you do plot... you are a plotter (duh!)

If you do not... you are pantser (from the term 'flying by the seat of your pants')

Personally, I'm an organic pantser... which explains why I rarely finish things, eh?

[C James]

I use a sort of "hybrid" approach too.

 

I start with an outline of major plot points. For a serial, I tend to be writing about two chapters at once, piecemeal. On rare occasion I write a chapter linearly, but that's the exception rather than the rule. I do have a plot, BUT, I sometimes change aspects of it on the fly.

 

In many cases the end of the story is what I write first; in the case of my current serial, the epilogue was the first thing written. For short stories, I need to know the ending before I write it, so I often write the ending first. I am also very comfortable writing multiple stories at once (today for example I've worked on a serial chapter for two different serials, plus a short story).

 

My motto is; if it works for you, it's right.

 

CJ

[Dio]

Personally, I'm an organic pantser... which explains why I rarely finish things, eh?

 

Would you believe I read this thread twice? And both times I thought you declared yourself as an orgasmic pantser?

 

Any-y-ways.

 

I eat organic vegetables, I drive a hybrid civic, and my writing is done in orgasmic fits. Tah dah. This utterly useless post has been brought to you by Dio.

 

For the record: I'm an organic pantser too. I'll be writing one scene and suddenly have an idea for a chapter down the road and open a new document and just keep typing, then I'll randomly pick up a completely different story and start writing. Sometimes I'll be writing one story while thinking about another. Surprisingly, I only plan plot out in very vague terms where a story will go, because I hate giving a story limits. There are always brainwaves that crash my plotters beach while I write, and trying to stick to an outline, I have found, is like trying to wash my face with sandpaper.

 

Anyone here ever type with their eyes closed while day-dreaming a scene? Although...the first time I tried it I had shifted all my fingers one key to the right and ended up with two pages of gibberish. Still, it's a fun excercise to do at least once to see if you like it.

 

-db-