1. I generally have a fair idea where I'm going with a story, though I'm a bit vaguer about getting there. However, subplots, twists, and abrupt plot derailments have been known to happen. Often. (As I've said elsewhere, I intended Halfway to be 15K or less. Interestingly enough, in even it's present "I'll be lucky if it's 150K" mutated form, every single element I originally planned is still there. It's just really, really been added to.)
2.I don't know that I'd say the characters do it. They will sometimes alter certain things based on their personalities, or bring up things I hadn't previously thought of, but it never really feels like they're 'taking control' the way I hear some people describe. The characters, plot, structure, etc., all are a unit and changes to any one element arising from a character aren't necessarily more common than changes to a character from other elements--and further, the whole thing functions as such an integral whole that I usually miss what 'causes' a shift because of the way it shifts everything3. I
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writing vs. working on writing craft
anonymous
October 4 2004, 07:35:22 UTC
For me, two entirely different processes. They need to be separate in the first draft phase, or it messes up my "flow."
GREAT writing exercise: Copy, word for word, a passage from an author. Then write another passage in the same style. Then, notice similarities/differences between that style and yours, and consciously choose what you might want to adopt (or not) from the other style, or accentuate or change in yours. Doing it deliberately seems to keep it from "leaking" when you don't want it.
Otherwise, I keep any such stuff separate from any first drafts I'm working on, which in my case is usually poetry.
1. Usually, along about three paragraphs into a story or so, I get a solid feel for the ending. This is because that's about the point the characters start becoming clear to me, and character is the base of every story I write. I don't outline, so I get to be surprised on the journey toward the end. The few times I've tried to outline, I've lost interest in writing the story, because I already know what happens.
2. If I'm lucky, and doing something right, the characters will come to life and take over the story, and all I'll have to do is write down what they're doing, saying, and thinking. Which is not to say that I don't do edits and re-writes because "the muses spoke to me." It's just that, if the characters feel like actual people in my head, and they start doing things that I didn't plan, it's usually a good sign that I've stumbled on their internal logic. If a character never quite gels, and I'm left pushing them through the motions, that's always a sign something's not right in the makeup, and the character is not a
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I often don't know where a story is going when I start, but it tends to kick in shortly thereafter -- about six paragraphs in I realize what road I'm on. That's for short stuff. Long stuff takes more deliberate plotting, usually, though I can still start and keep going till I run out of what I know comes next and then look around to get my bearing.
My characters don't talk to me like have a conversation, but they definitely do balk and/or head off some way I wasn't expecting.
Can you read books on writing while working on a piece without losing your own 'voice'?
Yes. Unless it's Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary, which completely screwed me for weeks. I'm much more likely to pick up an "accent" from someone with a distinctive voice in their own writing, like Woolf or Austen, than I am to get thrown by advice.
Reading and WritingshrewreaderOctober 4 2004, 13:42:19 UTC
I don't think I've ever tried to stop reading while writing. I've read King's book On Writing, and found it very helpful -- and reassuring to know that I was not the only one with bats in the belfry or guys in the basement, whichever. On the other hand, I tend to be a significantly different sort of writer from the majority here
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2.I don't know that I'd say the characters do it. They will sometimes alter certain things based on their personalities, or bring up things I hadn't previously thought of, but it never really feels like they're 'taking control' the way I hear some people describe. The characters, plot, structure, etc., all are a unit and changes to any one element arising from a character aren't necessarily more common than changes to a character from other elements--and further, the whole thing functions as such an integral whole that I usually miss what 'causes' a shift because of the way it shifts everything3. I ( ... )
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GREAT writing exercise: Copy, word for word, a passage from an author. Then write another passage in the same style. Then, notice similarities/differences between that style and yours, and consciously choose what you might want to adopt (or not) from the other style, or accentuate or change in yours. Doing it deliberately seems to keep it from "leaking" when you don't want it.
Otherwise, I keep any such stuff separate from any first drafts I'm working on, which in my case is usually poetry.
-- Devo
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2. If I'm lucky, and doing something right, the characters will come to life and take over the story, and all I'll have to do is write down what they're doing, saying, and thinking. Which is not to say that I don't do edits and re-writes because "the muses spoke to me." It's just that, if the characters feel like actual people in my head, and they start doing things that I didn't plan, it's usually a good sign that I've stumbled on their internal logic. If a character never quite gels, and I'm left pushing them through the motions, that's always a sign something's not right in the makeup, and the character is not a ( ... )
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My characters don't talk to me like have a conversation, but they definitely do balk and/or head off some way I wasn't expecting.
Can you read books on writing while working on a piece without losing your own 'voice'?
Yes. Unless it's Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary, which completely screwed me for weeks. I'm much more likely to pick up an "accent" from someone with a distinctive voice in their own writing, like Woolf or Austen, than I am to get thrown by advice.
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