Ah, so you are a discovery writer, then? Not to worry, I understand this is perfectly normal. You know, for your kind.
You see this as a bad thing? To me this is when it starts to get good! It's what I always aim for—if it doesn't happen I feel the story has no flow or life to it, and I abandon it.
Thanks guys, was just trying to be cute ^^ It's a bit dumbfounding when it happens, (which it did today) and you try to fight it to get back on track before you ultimately give up haha
"No, you people don't understand! The characters in my story came to LIFE! They're running around the neighborhood and the villain is trying to take over the world! The bar scene appeared in my kitchen and it smashed some load-bearing walls because it was too big! How do I get them back into the pages?! PLEASE HELP"
I had this with my current WIP. It wasn't just a case of loosing control, the story had grown so rambling and so directionless, I nuked it and started again. What I did was re-examine the core points of the story, the driving forces behind it and tried re-engineering the chapters carried the plot alone more efficiently. My advice? Just leave it alone for a week, then come back to it, think spend a couple of hours really thinking about the plot, how best to carry your characters between pivotal moments in your story. Throw out the gumph you don't need. I had to chuck characters out and subplots out, but my book is looking a hell of a lot better for it.
I love it when this happens! One story I wrote I had very definite, specific and utterly unchangeable places I wanted the story and characters to go and the story and characters, basically, went “lol ... No. here’s what’s gonna happen ...”. I loved writing that story.
