Monday, June 27, 2005
It's Only Words
Writing is a strange beast.
It never ceases to fascinate me how other writers work, perhaps because I haven't found my own process yet. Some sit at the computer at a set time, work for two hours and produce ten pages a day. Others write when the muse strikes, and still others sit down and map out every scene in terms of characterization/emotional depth/internal and external conflict present.
I admit, I've tried each of these... hey, whatever works at the time. Right now my method seems to be writing a long synopsis. My brain can't stay in one scene and I have to get it all down at once.
When I started my latest story, my brain was on fire to begin. I sat down and wrote twenty pages, and dang, it was some of the most satisfying writing I'd ever done. Twenty pages. There, ladies and gentlemen, was my chapter one. Except, when I reviewed it the next day I realised it hadn't written chapter one I'd written act one. Now I was in a complete flap, because brevity is one of my biggest failings as a writer. There was no way I could expand that to the sixty or eighty pages that would be usual.
But somehow I did expand it. Then I reverted to my old method of writing, one scene following another, with an eye on word count. I'm midway through act two and I'm stalled. My brain again wants to skip along and just get it all down. So I'm going to give that a try. see if something happens.
X
It never ceases to fascinate me how other writers work, perhaps because I haven't found my own process yet. Some sit at the computer at a set time, work for two hours and produce ten pages a day. Others write when the muse strikes, and still others sit down and map out every scene in terms of characterization/emotional depth/internal and external conflict present.
I admit, I've tried each of these... hey, whatever works at the time. Right now my method seems to be writing a long synopsis. My brain can't stay in one scene and I have to get it all down at once.
When I started my latest story, my brain was on fire to begin. I sat down and wrote twenty pages, and dang, it was some of the most satisfying writing I'd ever done. Twenty pages. There, ladies and gentlemen, was my chapter one. Except, when I reviewed it the next day I realised it hadn't written chapter one I'd written act one. Now I was in a complete flap, because brevity is one of my biggest failings as a writer. There was no way I could expand that to the sixty or eighty pages that would be usual.
But somehow I did expand it. Then I reverted to my old method of writing, one scene following another, with an eye on word count. I'm midway through act two and I'm stalled. My brain again wants to skip along and just get it all down. So I'm going to give that a try. see if something happens.
X
