posted
Hello. I'm quite a newbie. I have written a few essays and short stories in the past, but I recently started writing a story which at 7k words is just getting started. My question is, should a novel be written so that you write the first part first and middle part next and the end, last? I'm finding that I want to write particular scenes that are important to my story without writing the intervening scenes. It's not that those won't be important, I'm just not sure what they are about yet. Is this bad? Should I know better what's going to happen before I begin? I have a general idea, but it's still pretty vauge. I know I'm clueless - I just want to tell my characters' story without making too much of a mess. Also, is it acceptable to post in the fragments forum with partially completed stories? Thanks for your help.
Posts: 3 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Welcome Rat-Tantuski. I have been known to write a chapter that says, "Marie has meaningful encounter with forest spirit." Then I come back to it later. I also have added chapters that I wasn't planning on when I get later further into the story and realize that I need development earlier. This is even with an outline.
Yep. You can post fragments in the fragments forums. Or, at least, if that's a problem no one has complained about me yet.
I'd say that it depends how you wish to write your book. There are many ways to write, but I think it is important to be consequent with the path you choose. I don't think it is necessary at all to begin writing from the start and then finally finish with the end. But I do think that it is important that you have some sort of a firm outline which will work as a backbone to your writing, if you choose to write the chapters in a random order.
I've read somewhere that some writers actually begin with writing the final chapter first and then go on with the rest of the book, but yet again... to do this I belive that you need some sort of an outline.
posted
Welcome, Rat-Tantuski. In a perfect world, writers would write from beginning to end in perfect final draft form. You know, of course, what the trouble is. If you are one of umpteen-million writers, then there are umpteen-million ways to write. Whatever works. Good luck. Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
The thread that binds all novelists together is this: At some point the novelist must figure out what he or she is doing. You can do this work before writing by working out an outline, or you can do this work after you've finished writing your first draft. Either way the work must be done, and there's no one way of doing it. You have to decide what's going to work for the story you're working on.
One bit of advice I'll pass on is this: No one can answer your question, because when you sit down to work you, and only you, have to face the horde or demons that will tell you you can't do it. Part of learning how to write is learning how you write--your own methods, work habits, and so forth.
So I'd tell you to go ahead and write your novel scene by scene in any order you want. Who knows--you might be able to do this; and you might not.
I'd encourage you, however, to number your scenes and save them in different files. I'd encourage you to start a new "outline" file so you can order your scenes as you write them--you might find out that the 10th scene you've written is really the 2nd scene in your novel. Then, when you print out your story, you can print out the scene in the order you want them read. You'll have a lot of revision in front of you--and you may find out that the only way to get from draft one to draft two is to rewrite the entire thing from page one, in the order your novel will be read.
But if that's the only way to get your novel written, so be it.
quote:I know I'm clueless - I just want to tell my characters' story without making too much of a mess.
Yeah, that's a pretty good definition of "clueless", all right. Not quite as clueless as wanting to give birth without making a lot of mess or raise a child without making even more mess, but still pretty clueless.
quote:Also, is it acceptable to post in the fragments forum with partially completed stories?
Sure. Some people even post there when all they have is the thirteen lines being posted. Just mention that how much of the story is written and how much is in a form you're willing to have critiqued.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
One thing to watch out for: if you write in any order besides front to back, and you don't have a firm ouline, it'll be extra hard to avoid inconsistencies. Offhand, I'd suggest moving through your novel from start to finish, but for all those chapters you want to write later, you stick in one of MaryRobinette's "Marie has meaningful encounter with tree-sprite" type of chapter. That way, for each chapter you really write, you'll have a better idea how you got there, and you'll be more likely to write something that turns out to fit into your final version.
Posts: 932 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Welcome! As has been said, there are as many methods as there are writers. Do what works for you. Still, all the cautions above are good ones.
A firm basic outline is essential to keep you on track.
I've finished the first draft of my first novel. It took about 15 months. Essentially I worked from start to finish, but you're working ahead of yourself in your mind all the time. You're pondering scenes yet to come while simultaneously writing scenes chronologically, and sometimes those future scenes are so firmly pressing on your consciousness that you need to get them out of your system and down on paper before you can concentrate on the chronological work. So write them.
On my computer I kept a file called MISC. SEGMENTS. At it's largest it was about 100 pages long and full of those scenes that just couldn't wait until I got there chronologically. When the time came I reworked them to better fit into the story as it had evolved to that point. Some of them were simply deleted. But they were there; I could forget about them and get back to work.
The one problem I encountered was in writing what I came to call "connective tissue." That is, the stuff in between that needed to be written to smoothly connect these scenes with the chronology.
posted
Which is why I said that if you write out of order you must prepare yourself for a massive revision. Perhaps an entire rewriting--literally, that is--of your novel, writing it in order.
quote:A firm basic outline is essential to keep you on track.
Umm, no. Yes, this works for many--but not everyone needs a firm basic outline. I write mostly in order. When I am going at it I think I am writing in order but often I end up moving things around. And I do not outline at all. Never. To do so kills the story, I don't even think one chapter ahead, not one paragraph ahead or one sentence ahead. I finish a sentence and the next one springs from the last.
In talking with others who write this way--it is clear that if you do not do this yourself you can't will have a hard time understanding how those of us who are fly by pants writers do it.
You do what works.
Do you need an outline? Only if you area n outline writer.
Do you have to write in order? Only if that's how you tell a story.
You have to do what works for you--there are no rules on how to write. Otherwise there would be only one how to write book or article out there and everyone would use it.
The best way to find your way is to try several different ways until you discover your way.
posted
I mostly disagree with the "firm" part of that advice.....I think you need to let your stories grow and evolve, and if your outline is firm that will not happen. But as for basic outline, welll....I think that a basic outline *is* necessary for everyone, but by basic I am including a general idea of where to start and where to end, with a few major plot points in between, even if this is just in your head. The alternate is a place to start and very well thought out characters whose actions can tell the story for you if you are true to them. These ideas are about as basic as an outline can go, but I can't possibly think of a way that you can get away without even that. Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
And now we're back to the age-old debate--to outline or not to outline.
Whatever works for you.
Stephen King doesn't outline, and he doesn't seem to have a problem writing without one.
F. Scott Fitzgerald--if my memory is accurate--had an outline of The Great Gatsby taped on the walls around his desk.
Whatever works!
The only thing you have to keep in mind--and this, I think, is the only "rule" of writing--is that at sometime you have to figure out where your story is going.
As I see it, you can do this one of three places in your novel:
1 -- You can do it before you start writing.
2 -- You can do it sometime during your first draft.
3 -- You can do it after you've finished your first draft.
As I've said before, part of learning how to write is learning how you write. I've tried the outline method: it doesn't work for me. I've tried working without an outline: it doesn't work for me. What seems to be working for me now is to stop somewhere in the middle of the first draft, figure out where the story (I've put novel-writing on hold for a while) is going, and then start over with page one.
I guess I'm in the OSC school that the first draft is your only draft.
One last thing while we're at it. Some writers write fast, others write slow. I'll use two of our members as examples:
Shawn writes like a demon, and then has a massive amount of rewriting to do. But it works--her first novel landed an agent.
Eric James Stone is a slow writer, and he's published three stories, each the winner of a contest.
Whatever works for you.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited June 28, 2004).]
Christine, I have no idea what the end will be when I start--honestly. None. I start with a what if and a scene in my head and go from there. Sometimes the story does not work, but that's very very rare. How does this work--I have no idea, I only know that it does for me.
What is massive amounts of rewrites? Medicine Man took 4 months to write and a month for me to rewrite (edit.) My agent, two interns before Andy himself worked with me (think I knew more about what makes a novel work than the interns LOL) we took almost 9 months before he started pitching it. But a lot of this time was taken up with mail and discussions etc--So if put all together I'd say another 60 days went into editing. Tweaking mostly, one major plot thread removed. The story had a Christ parallel that he thought would destroy its chances of selling. With that removal came a major revision. So I don't think I really do any more editing than others.
quote:Shawn writes like a demon, and then has a massive amount of rewriting to do. But it works--her first novel landed an agent.
Yes, I write like crazy--my muse is a demon after all. But--No, not my first. It sits in the garage in a box never to see the light of day--awful, truly vomit did I write that--awful stuff. Medicine Man was my 8th complete novel. I've now completed three more in the last year and a half.
BUT--Medicine Man was the first novel I marketed. I did send in a query or two on that awful thing in the garage ( I count that as a learning experience)
Again--whatever works for you--the hard part if figuring out what does. One way is to read a lot of different how to books--a method will strike you. You'll all at once shout hey I understand what this person is talking about and off you go.
posted
srhowen, it sounds to me as if you've gone with my alternate 2.....have a place to start and some well-thought out characters who tell the story for you.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
By "massive amounts of rewrites" I was speaking of my own working habits.
As mentioned, I've slowly discovered that somewhere in the middle of the first draft I realize what's going on. (It's not the only way I write, but it seems to be the most comfortable and the method I employ the most.) If I were to continue writing without going back to the beginning, I'd have a massive revision on my hands because the beginning would be so out of snic with the end. It's just easier for me to stop and start over from scratch.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited June 28, 2004).]
posted
I read a book somewhere sometime from someone the names and times of which escape me that effectively suggested writing each individual scene as they came to you. So you have a collection of Scenes (not chapters) and once you're finished, you arrange them into chapters and order them accordingly and add any fillers or tie-ins you need to seque from one to the next, then do a re-write/edit and voila! Instant novel.
So I promptly began my first novel from page one and finished on page last. By the time I reached the end I had some major changes to make to the beginning, but it seemed to work out okay for me. THat of course, still has a lot of submissions to go before I can claim the method truly works.
That was written based (very loosly) on an outline, however. My current novel-in-progress started with a loose outline but I found myslef writing one chapter well before the prior chapter was ever done..and it really helped. I knew then how to use the earlier chapter to setup events.
So I don't really think it matters. You can go straight through then expect major rewrites of earlier chapters, or do it scene by scene. Whatever works for you.
As for the OSC one draft only approach...that may work for him, but I have FAR too many errors in my first drafts to ever dream of submitting such garbage!
quote: I'm finding that I want to write particular scenes that are important to my story without writing the intervening scenes.
The crucial thing here is that those scenes are the ones you want to write right now. I would recommend that you write the parts that you are excited about WHEN you are excited about them and not save them till you get to them--when you might not be quite as excited about them.
Of course you will have to do rewriting to smooth your scenes together, but you are going to have to do some rewriting anyway.
I think it's better to have material to work on that started out exciting to you, even if it needs tweaking to get it to fit in with stuff you wrote at some other time. It will all have a better chance of being interesting to your readers if you write it when you are interested in it.
Consider that movie scenes are not necessarily filmed in the order in which they are viewed, and story scenes don't have to be written in the order in which they will be read, either.
Of course, it would cost a lot of money to try to make a movie without an outline (script), but I think it would only cost time to write a book in the way I am recommending. And because it would be writing time, I think you would still be learning and improving your writing, even if you didn't use everything you wrote.
So don't let not having an outline keep you from writing the scenes that you want to write when you want to write them.
quote:As for the OSC one draft only approach...that may work for him, but I have FAR too many errors in my first drafts to ever dream of submitting such garbage!
He doesn't mean for you to write one draft and then send it out.
If understand him correctly, he means that if you have too many changes to make with a story--not merely clean-up issues, but major changes to the story itself--then you need to start over and write and entirely NEW draft of your story with these changes.
But this is OSC's method, and it may not work for you--just as Stephen King's method of writing may not work either.
posted
I end up doing a bit of the rewrite method and a bit of the editing method. The thing is, when I finish a work (even a short story, but especially a novel) there are significant chunks that I did quite well and need only cleanup. There are also inevitably chunks that need serious work, and story elements that need to be woven through in a better way. (Leading to significant story changes overall.) Take the novel I am speeding through right now. I should finish by the end of July, but at that point I have already come to recognize a couple of flaws. For example, I have a romance subplot that isn't working for me. I am even takingan online romance course to help me figure things out and make it better. Making this subplot more meanginful and steamier could involve en enitre rewrite if I wanted it to (It is an important subplot, almost a co-plot, if ther eis such a thing). But what I will do instead is say, keep chapter one because it already works well for me and I've had several readers give me three thumbs up on it. I'll add some descriptive details to chapter 2. Chapter 3 will more than likely need a complete rewrite, etc.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
By only "one draft", do you mean to edit as you go? Or to make every sentence count before you put it on paper?
Posts: 497 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
No. By "one draft" I mean that it must contain all the essential story lines.
Look, this is OSC's term, not mine. Once I get to a point where I realize the beginning doesn't sufficiently prepare for the middle and end, I stop and start over from the beginning. I call the abandoned draft my frist draft.
A lot of writing advice says not to do that, and it took me a long time to realize that's the way I write and that there's nothing wrong with it.
But in the end you must find your own way. I agree with PD insofar that you can't learn how to do it by talking about it. Learning to write takes years, not days. So commit yourself to writing. Don't worry about sending stuff out to be published. Just write. Story after story, finishing each one. It doesn't matter how you finish it so long as you do. Write ten or fifteen stories before you even think about sending one of them out. Learn how to write; learn how you write.
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