As I’ve said in previous posts, this was a difficult year for me personally because of my husband’s surgery, my daughter’s wedding and my son’s difficult school year. Knowing that it would be hard, I started Friday Ideas as a way to keep on producing picturebook ideas, but in a low-pressure sort of way. It’s worked. I’ve written about 7 picturebooks so far this year that I’m proud of and am marketing.
But I’ve been anxious to get a novel started again. Yesterday, I worked on a first chapter of a new novel.
I rarely talk about first drafts, because I don’t want to get into the controversy of how to do a first draft. Begin with a character and follow that character around. Plan character and plot extensively before you start. It’s amazing how vocal people can be about these choices and the continuum between them!
I once gave a talk about revising novels and in the introduction, I mentioned this dichotomy. I suggested that it would be interesting for a writer to deliberately choose to start a novel in the opposite way from their natural inclination. Later, I got an email from a writer who usually followed characters around. She had gone home and plotted a novel and wrote it in record time and sold it.
I’m going to take my own advice. You may not be able to guess this from my posts (she says ironically), but I’m pretty analytical. I usually plan things out. In this case, I’m taking something that I had half-heartedly planned a couple years ago. In fact, I only planned the characters, and not the plot. A perfect place to being my experiment in drafting a different way. I’m going to follow these characters around and see what happens. I expect it to be messy. (ARGH! CAn I stand it?) But it should be interesting.
So–for those of you who just follow characters around, any suggestions? Do I just write whatever scene occurs to me and put it in order later? Do you have ANY ideas about plot? What do you ask yourself when you sit down to write? What triggers the day’s writing?
I’m planning to reread yesterday’s scene and ask, what would my character do next. We’ll see what happens.
Related posts:
- Starting a Novel
- 5 Resources for First Drafts of Novels
- Big Scenes
- Plotting Difficult Topics: Wickedness, action
- Revising the Outline
 |  Revise with confidence. |
As a former plotter who never finished anything until he learned how to follow the characters, um, can’t say I have much advice. Out of order scenes tend to get me in trouble, especially once I write the connecting material and the later scene no longer fits, as the characters lead me in a slightly different direction than expected. For getting things going, knowing a lot about your characters and how they’re at cross-purposes helps a lot, but you knew that.
What I ask myself when I start writing is, “Okay, what happens next?” Which is also what triggers the writing, and why I can’t outline.
—L.
I have to plan. If I dive straight in, the work will be structurally flawed. I like to plan characters, sets, plot, all before I begin to draft. But when I do draft, I can work through it quickly. I later find al lot less structural rework if I do it this way. Of course everyone’s different. It’s worth noting though, I always leave room to change things if the story is pulling me in a different direction to the outline.
I have only sketchy ideas about plot, and sometimes literally don’t know what’s going to happen in the next sentence … I have to write in order, because since I’m following my character, I need to have everything they’ve already done behind me … but mostly, I give myself permission to right really, really, really rough first drafts as I follow my characters around and get to know them; and then once I know them I do large-scale rewriting to reflect what I know, sometimes completely revisioning half the novel or more in the process.
There are, of course, more orderly ways to follow characters, too, but that isn’t how I (usually–every book is different) work.
I also do a lot of listening–I try to get to the point where I can hear a character in my head talking to me, where I can see through their eyes–something it can also take a draft or two to get to. If writing were acting, I’d be mostly very much of the method actor school of same. :-)
L–I didn’t think about having to throw out scenes b/c the characters went in different directions. Sigh.
Clive–Yes, I usually plan and plan.
But–I want to try something slightly different this time. Partly just to get me going again on a novel, after spending most of my time on pbs. Partly just to see how it feels to have no idea of what comes next. Sometimes, I think we just need to take a risk and this feels risky to me!
Darcy
With my first book (still trying to market it) I just followed the character and let them take over. It was messy, I couldn’t make the plot work and I had to keep revising and reviseing – I ended up throwing out more words than i kept (100k).
This time I planning it all out and playing with scene briefs and extended scene briefs, which is a script writing technique. So far it is working out a treat, but I’m frustrated I can’t yet get to the actual writing – which is the fun part.
Have a look at my blog if you want more details about scene briefs. http://www.MervynBright.co.uk.
Peter
What triggers my day’s writing, is my subconscious thoughts from the previous day’s writing. Often scenes and dialogues have passed through my mind. I am amazed at how plots and subplots infiltrate the story and show up in their proper places chapters later. I start without knowing how it will end. But, organic writing is messy and takes more revision. For me, the second draft is where the plot structure is placed into the story. The nice result is that huge, huge surprises occur (if it surprises the author it will surprise the reader), and a new character can pop in that becomes more important than anticipated. It often feels like I’m reading a book when I’m writing.
Yet, I’d like to outline my next novel so I can experience a different process and see what I can come up with.
I didn’t think about having to throw out scenes b/c the characters went in different directions. Sigh.
I think as soon as one thinks of it as “throwing away” material, one gets in trouble. I think of it as more just part of the creative process … I need to write A to realize I need to write B to discover writing C would be even better. Just because I don’t use A directly doesn’t mean it’s not useful or important; A is what got me to B & C, after all.
FWIW, I’m a “organic, subconscious, messy first draft” writer and I think that even thinking of it as simply “following a character around” might be a bit self-destructive because it implies wandering (and your subconscious picks up on that and obliges).
Even if you don’t have a clue to the plot beforehand, and I often have only the sketchiest idea what will happen, you DO have a character with some kind of motivation (right?). One scene must literally drive the next, with a cause/effect -> cause relationship between scenes. So as long as your character either has some burning desire, or must respond to something that happened to them in the first scene (or very early), that should drive each scene and thus the plot — even with no advance planning.
That’s not to say that a scene might actually be caused by a scene 2 or 3 back; subplots help criss-cross and complicate those cause/effect relationships, which helps create surprises. But there’s still a driver in there and a reader waiting to see what that driver is going to cause. If you think of the story that way, it might keep you moving through the emerging plot more effectively than “whatever scene occurs” to you.
Like I say, FWIW. It works for me. (grin)