I had in mind more stuff like It, The Stand, and Needful Things, which was more or less the last of his I read. I suspect sobriety probably took him out of the dark place that he exploited so well. Anyway, I oughtn't to derail the thread with rants about King on my first day on the forum. Getting back to the OK, if you're going to keep this up, a follow-up thread about how it went would be really insightful.
It's certainly one way to work. And it's one that work, one that works for lots of people. But it's not the only way. The thing is that really there isn't a difference between pantsers and planners; it's just about process not result. Pantsers keep everything in their head and explore out away from the things they know they want to do. Planners put their ideas on paper and expand around it. They really are just different styles of doing the same thing. It's just, well, some of us work better keeping everything mutable and would instantly hate anything set in stone.
It all depends on the type of thinker you are. I do a lot of my world building and character building as I write my prose, so in a way I'm a pantser. BUT once in a while I sort of "take an inventory" of what I know about my world and each of my characters, so I'm also a quazi-planner for future drafts.
I would disagree, at least somewhat. You need to have some idea of where the story is going, but a very detailed outline would simply frustrate the heck out of me. We each write in different ways, so do what works for you.
I agree. A few years ago when I first told my sister I was wiring a novel, she told me something that stuck with me. It's my own personal project, so I don't have to fixate on worrying it in order. Everyone had their own process for how to build their story before piecing it together in the order they want.
Not just that, some of us are so stifled by outlines, the writing suddenly becomes contrived, mechanical, and takes three times as long because it's inhibiting.
Thank you. Here's something that will blow your mind: Did you know there are some writers, including many successful screenwriters, who are dyslexic? The late Steven J. Cannell is one who comes to mind. Some people with dyslexia literally cannot write outlines. Some of them even have the type of dyslexia that's triggered by attempting to put numbers in order. When I'm extremely tired or stressed out, I am that type of dyslexic. When that happens, I can't count to 20 for shit, or write a summary of scenes in order, but I can still draft a story that makes sense, making it up as I go, or write a non-fiction article that flows. Here's the thing: we're not in school anymore, so we're allowed to break the rules. (Some of us even broke them while we were still in school. My first question was always, "How much of the grade is the outline?")
That is all right, @Jak of Hearts, heated discussions are always fun on this site, as long as everyone remains civil. Which so far, everyone is. You kicked over an anthill that reveals that planners and pantsers make Republicans and Democrats look like models of conviviality! I am a somewhat successful self-published author. I completed "The Eagle and the Dragon" at 240K words, and it is doing very very well. The original outline, all in my head, was "Romans go to China by ship, pirates and other bad guys try to take their ship away. Get to court, some problem involving cultural conflict, a woman and Roman sense of honor, bad things happen. Dramatic escape, return to Rome overland, more bad guys trying to kill them." Then I just started writing. No, I never took a creative writing class, but I do have an MS in aero engineering and 25 years in Naval aviation, so I am no stranger to planning. But I wrote meticulously outlined technical documents for the past several decades, and if I applied that to my creative writing, I think it would wind up sounding like a technical manual, or a history exposition. That being said, I did a lot of meticulous planning for each individual chapter. Among other things, I used a map-making program to lay out each chapter's route, and I knew the speed of advance of my ships (nominal 100 miles per day, 150 with a good wind), how many miles you could cover on horseback, with and without spare mounts, how many miles per day might a caravan cover. This let me know when I left each point of departure, and when I arrived at my chapter's destination, so I could structure the weather accordingly. And a lot of research on a lot of things, like proper Chinese titles for government ministers in the Han dynasty, some of the Chinese Emperor's key advisers, and when they died. One died shortly after the setting of the story, so I had Ban Chao showing signs of illness, which got progressively worse. I was concerned, about halfway through the story, that I had started so many threads that I couldn't possibly bring them all together. But somehow, I did. There was actually a plan, moving characters to be in a certain place so I could use them much later in the story to conclude their thread. But because when I sat down to write a chapter, I often did not know how that chapter would end up, my readers also find the action to be unexpected. Also, since this has the potential to be just a real long, 17,000 mile travelogue, every set of chapters has its own crisis, conflict and resolution, which gives it an episodic character, while leading to that central conflict in the court, followed by several more crises on the way back.. It also made it easier to write, since I was focused on just one segment at a time. I like to say, writing it was like watching a TV series... I had to go downstairs to find out what happened next. Anyway, glad to meet you @Jak of Hearts, and feel free to kick over more anthills with us!
Or, indeed, never gets finished at all, because we already know the story so what's the point in writing it? I never managed to finish a novel until I stopped outlining. Ultimately, all you need is a setting, a character, and a problem, and you keep writing until the character solves the problem somehow. And, yeah, I routinely write out of chronological order.
I do both. By preference (that's what I'd like to do) I'd write chronologically. I love it when the story unfolds while I'm writing, but that's not always possible. I'm probably 40/60 on the planner/pantser scale. What works for me: Write a chapter/short-story which is crystal-sharp in my mind, let's say number 4 (number 1 is already written). Then catch up on the intervening chapter/shorts, number 2 and 3. And then write the next sharp chapter/short, whether it's number 5 or 6 or 7. And catch up again. With that I usually manage to write events as they should unfold, as well as feeding the pantser in me
I'm a Mary Poppins writer that is I start at the beginning and go on until the end and then stop. Ive tried writing out of order but that just wound up as a big mess
I love this. Haven't finished the book yet, but it's interesting to see how much and what kind of research you put into it. On the flip side, I'm trying to wean myself off of research, as I find (for me) it can become a form of procrastination. I spent four (writing) days trying to figure out the mechanics of a sublight journey from a nearby (<10 light years) star to Sol before I realized that no, I wasn't writing, I didn't have the background to make it hard SF, and I should just tell the story, dammit. But back to the topic, I have a vague outline of my story in my head, but I will write whatever part of it is floating near the top of the pond at the moment. My inspirations often come in the form of endings, where I know where I want the story to go, but not how it gets there and certainly not how it starts, so achonological writing is normal for me. Basically, I try to follow the maxim of "If you're stuck, move to someplace that you aren't, you can always adjust it later." The architectural example above doesn't hold because a story is a blueprint, not the house itself; you can always go back and erase things and draw new lines. Right, ramble/ranting....
I did this. I wrote about ten chapters and then realised a couple of my characters had changed considerably and I had got to know them much better. I cut the original first chapter, heavily edited the others, and added a load of stuff to show their personalities more consistently. It's probably not the most efficient way of doing it, but I think I gained a much richer understanding of my characters doing it this way than by trying to imagine them up as whole people from the outset. They were superficial before I started writing them and became more real over time.
Thanks, @Iain Aschendale, ... starting research for the sequel, reading up on Trajan's Roman version of Desert Storm when he invaded what is now Iraq, taking the capital Ctesiphon, near Baghdad, and continuing down to the Persian Gulf at Kuwait. That will be one of the central crises of the book, and I want to make sure I have the legions and movements right. I want to use one of my major characters from E&D now as a major commander, but need to make sure how much historical flexibility I have. Got about 10,000 words done, and my characters are beginning to talk to me.
