Comments on: What is your writing method? What carries you from blank page to first draft?

By: grasshopper

grasshopper — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:45:14 +0000

The jig-saw puzzle analogy is lovely and seductive. And maybe in the future, I will try it.
Right now, I’m running a marathon. I write original fiction on my blog, with a self-imposed requirement that I post a coherent piece Monday-Friday. (On Saturdays and Sundays I am sequentially posting a novel I wrote a few years ago.) This schedule leaves me with little to no time to write other fiction. But I have hopes the set-up will pay off later.
Before starting the blog, I had fallen into a pattern of polishing every paragraph, and proceeding only when I felt the page or two was as perfect as I could make it. Conceivably this might work for another writer; for me it produced, cause or effect, writer’s block. This most recent experience reminded me of other times I was stuck, but denying it, insisting to myself that the continuous rewriting was rewarding me with terrifically evocative openings, transitions, wherever in a narrative the perfectionism infected me–it does feel like a disease.
The goal of posting new fiction Monday through Friday forces me to develop stronger plot-lines, always my weakest aspect. It allows for NO rewriting, though, which is frustrating. My age-old technique has always been to develop a loose plot and very vivid (to me anyway) characters with elaborate inner lives. Now I figure out what happens next for my daily post and concentrate until I hear the words echoing in my head.
Other than the adrenaline rush writing fiction gives me, good day or bad, the blog does reward me with a handful of daily readers as opposed to a few yearly ones–if that.

By: grasshopper

grasshopper — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:45:00 +0000

By: Bill Ectric

Bill Ectric — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:25:33 +0000

I’m starting to do a bit more outlining than I used to. Your jigsaw puzzle analogy gave me an idea: I just finished making index cards for each character in my novel, listing traits and all kinds of info about each person. I plan to refer to the card of whichever character I am writing about.

Jamie, I also agree with you about sharing my work. It motivates me when I know someone will soon be reading a chapter I’m working on. I’m thinking about posting my entire novel-in-progress on my blog. Do you think that’s a good idea?

You know, it’s funny how newer writers refuse to put their work on the internet because they are afraid someone will steal it; whereas, if you’ve been around a while, you realize you are lucky if someone even READS it.

By: Bill Ectric

Bill Ectric — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:25:00 +0000

By: Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:39:08 +0000

For me, it’s sharing the work – even in a rough state. That keeps me working through the story and it also helps me work through the details that need to be in the story, especially when I want to get on with it.

Knowing that someone is going to read that rough work makes me fill in action so that things make sense, because I hate trying to explain “why this was like that” and “why so and so said whatever”. When I turn over a piece of draft, those questions remind me that I need to get more story out of the work rather than window dressing. Also, knowing that someone is waiting for the next installment also keeps is working.

In order to do this, you have to produce some fairly refined “draft” and do it on a consistent basis. That keeps the fires going though and keeps me focused on the task.

From this comment, you can probably tell that I like to ramble on from idea to idea. Bouncing story ideas about without much sense of closure. Of course, no one wants to read these kinds of things (sorry, everyone) but again that is one of the tweaks that keeps the fiction machine running in the right direction.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:39:00 +0000

In order to do this, you have to produce some fairly refined “draft” and do it on a consistent basis. That keeps the fires going though and keeps me focused on the task.