Hi again! Thanks for the thorough explanation of your point of view, which makes perfect sense to me. I'm wondering if maybe you might unstick yourself from the plot problems you have encountered by simply stepping back and taking time out. Instead of trying to write your way out of the problem (it might work but it might also be intensely frustrating and counter-productive—and create a lot of mess that will need to be thrown away later on) you might want to simply think your way out of the problem instead. You've indicated that you know where your story is supposed to go. That's a great start. So it's just a matter of figuring out how to get there. If the road you're going down now has led to a dead end, you need to try a different road. As you're just in the planning stages, that should be easy. Keeping your end in mind, go back and see if you can find another route to get there. Take some of the things you've planned to do and turn them on their heads, in your mind, anyway. Would changing what a character is like make a difference? Or where he goes? Or when he goes there? Or who he meets? Play around with your time frame, introduce new elements. What would happen if.... In other words, let your brain wander around the things you want to say, and see if you can get that 'eureka' moment when it all falls into place. I've found things like going for long walks, waking early in the morning and spending time in bed envisioning the characters doing things, etc, are what spark my story problem solving. It sounds as if it's the story problem-solving end of this business that's plaguing you ...not the ability to write coherent prose. I tended to write scenes as they came to me, that I'd strongly envisioned. I didn't always know how to link them together at first, but the more scenes you can get written, the more pieces you'll have, and the more links will suggest themselves. I think if you spend as much time as you can actually envisioning scenes clearly in your head (not necessarily writing them down) you may suddenly find solutions to what is plaguing you now. Do be aware that the old expository writing style ...you state a purpose and then proceed to prove it, then conclude by recapping how you proved it ...will NOT help with your fiction writing. It may have garnered you great marks at school (it did me) but it's the sort of thinking you need to scrap. I mean really scrap. Fiction is an entirely different proposition. You're not 'proving' something. Instead you're getting people to experience a situation and draw their own conclusions from the experience. In order to do this, you need to make the situation live for your readers. If you do this well enough, and pick the way you present the situation very carefully, you will have some control over what they take away. Some control, not total control. That's the beauty of fiction. Everybody comes away with different impressions of what they've read, and because they all have different lives, they will apply what they've read differently.
I agree, that's something I noticed a while back. I've read most of the series, but I actually gave up midway through A Dance With Dragons. It's a good book but I kind of just personally lost interest. And yeah, I've had that feeling for a while too; kind of that feeling like Martin has dug a hole so deep without even thinking of how he was going to get back out again, and now he's stuck. I think he might actually have no idea how to end the story. Which would be a shame. It would be nice to see the story reach a grand finish, but Idunno man. We'll see what happens I guess.
If my writing is academic, l outline. Fiction and poetry, seat-of-the-pants all the way. How does one outline a luminescent 3D plot sphere? I have points I know need to be reached; I know their locations in the chaos of my sphere, and so far, my characters have not left me stranded. It's like net wrapped around a fish float, the storylines curving, just out of sight, I keep writing, the end of that story draws closer...I and I sound like a total head case.
Just a small correction: Free-writing is not synonomous with 'pantsing' or discovery writing. I never do that, and I don't know of many (if any) writers who would as a method for writing an entire project. http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/freewritingterm.htm
This is one of those topics in which each individual makes his/her own choices for his/her own reasons. As others have pointed out, there is no right or wrong. Only what works for you. Experience either reinforces your initial decision or convinces you to change. My first few attempts at a novel were of the "pantser" variety, probably because once a story idea occurred to me, I was too impatient to actually sit down and plan it out. Even so, I always had at least some idea of where I would end up. But I found that writing this way left my stories unevenly written and prone to blind alleys and dead ends - problems in the story that couldn't be resolved. None of the novels I wrote this way were good enough to be published, but I felt I learned a lot with each attempt. My most recent work, for which I have begun the process of querying agents, is a historical novel with a modern day component. It simply isn't possible to write such a work coherently without a great deal of planning (at least not for me). However, there is an an important caveat - outlining a novel is a lot like assembling a picnic table, in that when you assemble the table, you initially leave all the bolts a little loose, tightening them only at the very end. This gives you some flexibility in placing additional parts and pieces. Same with a novel. As you write, as your story and your characters evolve, new possibilities inevitably occur to you. The events of the story impact and ultimately alter the character, and the growth of the characters has an impact on the story. It's important that whatever planning device(s) you use - chapter outline, timeline, character sketches, etc - you leave as much flexibility as you can to allow for that growth. For my historical, I had a specific chapter outline set at the beginning of the project, but in the writing, three chapters got merged into two, one planned chapter was dropped completely, and four new chapters (two historical and two present day) were added. Going forward, I will approach all of my writing projects the same way - full understanding of what kind of work I want, a very basic outline to start and leaving the bolts loose enough to make adjustments when I need them.
Heh! I see that you're new so it's not easy to know, but this is one of the topics that ALWAYS starts animated discussions...
If you ever find yourself in a workshop or class with a person who informs you that there is only one system for writing that works, here is what you do. 1.) Pick up your WIP 2.) Put it in your bag 3.) thank them for their time 4.) exit the room 5.) Never look back. If only one system worked in painting, we wouldn't have picasso. If only one system work for film making, we wouldn't have 2001: A space Odyssey. If only one system work for writing, it wouldn't be worth learning to read.
Wow - really well stated. Also, not your fault that this thread lit off...discovery writers and outliners have a tendency to slug it out because they both have very defined ideas about story construction. I think you're right about some pure-discovery writers having some swagger - but on occasion that leads to over confidence with someone sitting in your writing group ranting about how you don't get the beauty of the organic nature of their story...when really they've just written garbage Anyhow - to your actual questions - the first thing your need to do is take your "Internal Heckler" out behind the proverbial barn, spit in his face, and then proceed to beat the living SNOT out of him. He will not be terribly useful to you in the cause of writing fiction - and often gets in the way of the far-more-useful internal editor. And yes, there are a lot of reasons your story logically happen - as there are with most stories, that's why it's fiction. We apply liberal amounts of "handwavium" to paper over the little fallacies so the reader can't see them, it's just what we do. I cover awkward time gaps by cutting to flashback scenes like commercial breaks, and I let myself ignore current events for future history by flushing the plotline into an alternate timeline on Page 1 (I killed off Pope Francis before he got elected...oops). Those are both hand waves - these aren't the droids you're looking for. I did it on purpose, and I'm not sorry As for the A to B question - there you hit the biggest thing in the whole Discovery vs. Outline debate that nobody admits....I said that every Discovery writer has some sort of outline and knowledge of story structure...the flip side of that is that every outliner still has to discovery write their way through scenes. The outline is great, but once you're IN the scene you still have to visualize the characters, think about how they work, and organically feel out their dialogue and actions. This is where the whole visualization/brainstorming thing has to come out and you have to be able to see the movie running in your head. Also - if you're looking for craft help to nail down how a lot of these techniques work, I know some podcasts that I think you would like, as you have the type of analytical mind that can nerd out over process and technique. I won't shill for it on the boards but in your case there are like five or six episodes (at least) that you'd find really interesting. PM me.
I reckon the important thing for us to consider, when discussing ANY method pertaining to writing, is that each one will have strengths and weaknesses. It's handy to recognise the potential pitfalls, and work to minimise them. In short : outlining can produce stiff, robotic work, pantsing can produce chaos. Good to be aware of these things, no matter what method you prefer.
