acp751

I've started a novel and am curious as to how others work on theirs. Do you develop your characters and plotlines completely before you start? When I started my current novel, I began with just an opening scene and two characters. Is this a foolish way to start? I was just very inspired with the scene & characters I had created and wanted to start writing right away. Now I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out exciting things to do to these people.

tallulah

i started writing that way but found i hit a brick wall. I now write brief character descriptions, and sort of make up a story board. I think of these few lines as islands that need to be linked together to get these people from a to b in an exciting way. its also nice to have a data base of infomation on your characters, makes you more familiar somehow.

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Tallulah

RomanticRose

I start with pages and pages of character work, on my main and secondary characters. I move then to a very basic plot outline and timeline. Once all that is done, the rest is not as much work.

I also know several very good writers (two of them published) who write by the seat of the pants. It all boils down to what works best for you. Play with different processes and find the one that makes your story sing.

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Normski

It depends on what I'm writing. I tend to work from the back to the front. Think of a detective novel where clues are found leading to a climax. I tend to place these clues as I work forwards, then come up with a why and how as to why the, for example, why the murder weapon was buried amongst the orchids.

From this I tend to find that a lot of character traits is done for you, and all that's required is some flesh on the bones. I tend to have several run throughs, editing as I go, is this style "normal?"

ArlenOrobono

Most of my writing just happens as I write it. I'm hard pressed to brainstorm ideas when I'm actually attempting to brainstorm, but they occasionally just come to me when I'm actually in the middle of writing >.>.

laciemn

I have a few different ways...first, I'll write it in my notebook. It's mostly short hand, I don't write complete sentences, just what's happening with the plot and giving myself an overall feel of the scene.

Then, I type into a word processor and use my brain power to make it work :p.

I find if I just sit down and write, no revising or planning, it comes out very wrong. I need some guidance in my head; some idea of where it's going and what ties into what and how it's all going to happen. This causes many problems for me, seeing as my ideas of what happen change literally every 15 minutes of writing.

It's a hard job, man.

Ken

I agree with many of the other posters in that I think what works for one person might not work for someone else. Given that, I think there are some general guidelines that apply to most (if not all) writers.

These two are that I found extremely helpful in beginning (and completing) my own novel:

--detailed biographical sketches of all the major characters.
I wrote pages and pages for each character. Where they grew up, how many siblings they had. Physical descriptions, strengths, weaknesses, character flaws, behavioral traits--all kinds of stuff. Afer all, how can you write believable characters about whom readers will care about if you don't know them inside and out, backwards and forwards? You might not end up using everything that you come up with--but you write from the overflow.

--a general story arc.
I like visualizing an arc more than a flat line. An arc has life!
You not only want a starting point and ending point, but equally important, 4 or 5 key points along the way--inciting moments that are crucial to the story's development, which create change in your characters. Once you know this basic arc, including the significant points in the middle, the rest is what Richard Ford (Pulitzer Winner for Indepence Day) calls connective ligature that glues or holds the story together. And it's in this connective ligature, that you can really have a lot of fun and breathe life into your characters--not only are you in their head, but they're crawling around in yours!

This is all very fresh two me because I'm doing it all again right now on my second novel, while I"m waiting on word about the first.

Hope this helps.

Happy writing, Ken

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"Doubt is an uncomfortable condition. But certainty is absurd." --Voltaire

ClancyBoy

In many many coats, like the paint job on a fine sports car.

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

ClancyBoy

WTF is wrong with the forums?

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

*Angel

i write by doing the whole detailed reference material, time-line and plot first. characters, towns, cultures, weather, geography, history, etc...

probably 70% or more even, of that stuff wont even be noticeably mentioned in the story either.

but like Ken said how can you make it believable if you yourself don't know it inside and out

Veldrin

i make simple character bios and general plot outline, write out several scenes that simply have to happen, if the story is to make any sense.. Without those firmly given, my characters would do whatever they want and end totally elsewhere =)

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ashleyc8705

I have a funny way of starting new stories. Before I go to bed I think about characters, plots, etc. Then when I wake up in the morning, I hop on my computer and start typing. It seems like everything comes to me really early in the morning. I sometimes start with character descriptions, or I go directly to the story. I go with a quick outline and then start working on the guts of it.

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lin

Frankly, although to each his own and all, I would strongly advise against writing reams of character dossiers. I just run into many people who have any luck that way. And I notice that those who do it tend not to get published.

Perhaps because they are spending all their time writing things other than their story. Leaving their game in the locker room as we used to say on the ball club.

Another thing that glares out at me about that practice is that it indicates somebody trying to write a story about a character he doesn't know. If you wrote a story about your family, would you need all those reams of favorite colors and crap? No, because you know them. If you wrote a story involving your favorite comic or lit character, would you need all that? No, because you know the character. (And if you look at a lot of the "character questionaires" you see posted on newbie sites, you realize that you don't know all that shit about your favorite characters, either. Who cares what their favorite color is or where they went to grade school?

The danger is that these things constrict the normal growth of your character. It's like writing a dream sheet for what your baby will be like when he grows up. As a rule of thumb, if you have to list it, it's because it isn't real to you.

That's not to say it's not a good idea to write down as much as you can about the sotry and character and other elements as they "come in". I generally dash of tons of stuff, then read through it once the original rush of creative excitement fades into "getting the damn thing written".

I once did a story with several characters of equal valence and different characteristics and made a chart to keep them separate...a sort of Dirty Dozen thing to sort out several characteristics I wanted. (Is the black guy the electonics expert? Is the drummer the chicano guy or the black guy? Etc.) But once that gelled up, there was no need to write down everything about them. Because I knew them, and would get to know them better as the story progressed.

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Truth-Teller

Wow.

For once, Lin has something to say; he didn't over-generalize everything.

Bravo! Listen to Lin.

FMK

Honestly, I don't guide myself much at all. There are some things that I know I want to happen later in the story/series, so I'll do some subtle foreshadowing, but mostly, my scenes depend largely on my mood. Only restriction there is that I don't do serious scenes all that well; I always have to have something lighthearted in there with it or it just seems flat to me.

As for characters, I think about their general personality type, but no more. I just let the characters develop themselves as I write them, so they seem more likely to actually get involved in the story without being flat. Sometimes they even surprise me, and I love that.