The Backward OX

I may have asked this, or something similar, previously.

Bear with me, I’m a slow learner.

All this monkeying around with scenes. Everyone seems to be saying a writer has thousands of Post-Its stuck up all over the wall with cryptic notes on them, and shuffles them around into some order or other, to get the story straight.

When I’m writing, I have in my head, for example, this scene where two guys are arranging on the phone where to meet for a drink the following Saturday. I type it out in full in a Word document.

The next thing I write, in that same Word document, is where Saturday dawns bright and sunny and our hero is propped up in the bar waiting for his mate to arrive.

And he then arrives.

They talk.

And so on.

The words, i.e., scenes, issuing forth on my monitor all follow in logical, chronological order. Where is this need to have stuff stuck on walls? Why can’t I just write one scene after another, in a Word document? Do these other “writers” just look for ways to make life difficult under the guise of pretending a real writer needs all this mumbo-jumbo?

Or is there something I’m missing?

__________________

Sam Winchester

I do it your way, OX. In chronological order. I get an idea for a scene at the start of a novel, and then it's just figuring out in my head where the story goes from there. I don't outline. I don't do post-its. Many of the scenes in my novels are spur-of-the-moment. A lot of the time the endings aren't what I had envisioned at the beginning.

I say just go with. This is the way I feel comfortable writing the story. It's the way you feel comfortable. So write it that way and don't worry what way other writers are doing theirs. Every writer has their own methods. Do whatever works best for you.

__________________

Don't unlock doors you're not prepared to go through.

The Backward OX

Thanks Sam

__________________

qwertyman

Sam's right - do it your way.

I was forced into adopting the card-board (as opposed to cardboard) method by circumstances.
I have a novel 138,000 words much too long for the genre (adventure/mystery/humour) - I have to cut it by 30,000. I have it suggested to me that I cut the sub-plot.

My novel is plot-driven and necessarily complicated and the only way I could see whether it was possible to accomplish this was by dividing it into 23 'scenes' and pinning them to a board.
By juggling the 23 cards I could see a way to do it and it was easier to spot the consequences. This kind of thing:-

• I lose a character but I can absorb his plot involvement in other ways.
• Removing the sub-plot releases me from a time constraint and I could move the whole thing to a different month which was always necessary.
• Two lengthy scenes that could be amalgamated into one - but only if it happens two days earlier.

.........and so on.

Like Sam, I develop the story-line as I go along without pre-plotting. I have an idea where it is all going to end up but have little or no idea how it is going to get there.

Although the card-board method doesn't serve me as a plot-aid whilst writing, it comes into its own during editing.

It suits me, sir.

The Backward OX

Mmm.

__________________

lilacstarflower

On the whole, I agree with you Ox. I don't have notes scribbled all over the place.

I do have a notebook where I write ideas as they come to me. But if I know I'm going to write about event X, I just write out a rough draft and refer to the notebook if I get stuck or if there was something desperately lacking.

Last night I managed to outline a whole new story - start to end - at one sitting, in a word document with no referrals to any other sources. I was/am really happy with that

__________________

RomanticRose

If they don't work for you don't use them. In simple linear storylines, I don't use them, but in stories with several subplots they can come in handy. Actually, I use notecards spread out on the floor.

__________________

The Backward OX

Never work if you have a cat for an editor. Finish up with jabberwocky.

__________________

BOURBON

I love it that you two are best buds now.

BOURBON

I use notes for redrafting. Before I start writing the first draft I break the story down into plot-points, then break plot-points into building scenes. Then I write chronologically. Everyone does it their own way, I guess. I know someone who still uses a pencil and won't go near a keyboard. He actually pays someone to type up for him, then edits with those lil' ol' marks publishers use. And he makes good money. Luddite!

The Backward OX

That seems like a good middle ground, between a wall covered in notes, and nothing.

__________________

RomanticRose

But, I don't have a cat. Not interested in having an entity in the house whose poop I have to clean up. Just don't care for the arrogant beasts. My theory is they retain an ancestral memory of being worshipped by the Egyptians and never really got over it.

__________________

HarryG

I feel like a parrot, sometimes, but I'm a forgetful parrot, and repetition helps me with my fading memory.


I think about my story for some time, usually weeks or months, before I start. When I start, I have no notes apart from a sheet of paper listing 30-odd chapters. The start is always difficult because I want to capture the reader, and the first page is unlikely to survive the first writing. About four pages in, it normally starts to flow. I keep the first chapter short.


The second chapter is a normal one and by this time I know roughly where I'm going. At this point I put some very rough notes against each very rough chapter, merely to discipline myself in case I get carried away in my pressing eagerness to get it all down.


Despite this chapter discipline, I sometimes forget some important point in an early chapter, and make notes against later chapters to rectify my mistake, if possible. (For some reason I prefer to do it this way, rather than amend a chapter already written.)


I have a friend who also writes and she has more original notes than appear in her finished manuscript.


Vive la difference!

alanmt

I just start writing and go, even though the plot is in my head.

Because my longer works involve 6 to 10 major characters and complex plotting, a big part of my editing process involves making a chronology and moving around chapters and adjusting internal time references for consistency. With an ensemble cast, this is tougher than you would think. I have some chapters that relate to only one character or one aspect of a subplot.

Part of the reason why I do this is also because I start at the beginning, write for a 100 pages or so, and then skip to the end because this is the most exciting part of the novel and hence the funnest to write, and then do the scenes in the middle necessary to make sure everything ties together at the end.

__________________
Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum europe vincendarum

Tiamat10

I'm an MS Word kind of person for drafting. I get the idea, I jot it down in choppy, lowercase, chronological writing. When I'm satisfied with where things are going I start--at the beginning. I go in order.

When I go back to edit, I jump from here over to there, back around to this place, and then a hop, skip, and a jump to that place. You get the idea.

My post-its come in handy when I've realized I've left something open that will later need fixed. I write down the problem and the page number and then I just keep right on going. I don't even stick the post-it on my wall until I've either run out of room on it or I need a post-it for something else so I have to tear the stupid thing off.

Whatever works.

__________________