Writing during lunch

[ksmith]

It doesn't matter how long or how deeply I ponder a plot, how many scenes I work out in my head. It isn't until I start writing the scenes that things start snapping into place. Working out the dialogue, the emotions.

One whole subplot dropped into my lap today. I didn't expect it, but it makes sense, considering. What I'm trying not to think about is the fact that this book will likely follow the way of the others and CHANGE IN WAYS INCONCEIVABLE TO ME NOW, but I guess that's something I have to live with.

I wrote my spell. I likes my spell.

Now, off to slay some weeds...

Comments

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Try your spell out on the weeds! :-)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Nah--I have too much fun twisting their little buds off.

Changing in ways inconceivable

[(Anonymous)]

It is odd, isn't it the idea that writer's write books they want to write or intend to write. Ideas and the visions of books seem to be made out of lots of attempts that eventually fall out of evolution, but lead to the heart of what the book needs to be.

I kind of have the feeling sometimes as though these stumbles and starts and tryouts are like the victims in one of those movies where you just know a certain number of characters are going to perish, but the central character just won't get to live their tale of survival without the cannon fodder showing all those false attempts to survive.

Also sounds a bit ruthless I know, but somehow, being able to try things out with a certain faith and optimism but an acceptance that you are never quite sure what and where you will end up seems important to writing, and perhaps even to writing well.

Kev
http://devilpa.blogspot.com/

Re: Changing in ways inconceivable

[thecurlyboy.livejournal.com]

Ah, the magic of literary evolution. Nothing spawns from the writer's head perfectly formed. From the moment pen meets paper (or, these days, fingers meet keyboard), there's little mutations - changing dialogue, for example - and big mutatitions - altering entire scenes or plot devices - all of which can be good, bad, or just different, and all of which alter the original concept in ways the author could never have imagined from the beginning.

Re: Changing in ways inconceivable

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Also sounds a bit ruthless I know, but somehow, being able to try things out with a certain faith and optimism but an acceptance that you are never quite sure what and where you will end up seems important to writing, and perhaps even to writing well.

For me, it's just my process. It would be so much simpler from a business pov if I could write an outline and stick to it, but things derail, or stop dead in their tracks, and I have no choice but to rethink.

Meanwhile, editors like outlines. I'm lucky that mine has been understanding regarding changes. She even told me in the case of one book that she had her doubts about the story as outlined, but figured it would work itself out in the writing, which it did.

But mine is not an economical process, nor a particularly timely one. It does what it does, in its own good time. I have had to force it on occasion, and while the resulting story was fine, the recovery time was long. I don't mean to sound ahtsy-fahtsy. I'm a great believer in writing regularly and building those story muscles, and like any work-out regimen, you need to do it whether you want to or not. But I need to juggle it with the story building process, which works in my backbrain and blurts when it's damned good and ready.

In a way, it's good. Knowing the story will twist and turn on me keeps it from turning into an exercise. Knowing that there will always be that a/g/g/r/a/v/a/t/i/o/n excitement. It's never boring.

Re: Changing in ways inconceivable

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

This is how some writers work. Others can develop an outline, consciously inserting each step and twist, until in the end they have the story. That process is as alien to be as mathematics.