I know we've already had the 'to plot or not to plot' discussion, but I wanted to relay this conversation I had with my wife, and see if jives with any of you.I'm working on a short story, and I let my wife read it the other night. She finished and said (among other things), "I liked the bit with the apple. Neat touch." I looked at her for a moment, thought about the scene she was referring to, and thought her comment was very interesting.
See, the "bit with the apple" is a necessary bridge to get from one scene to the next. She saw it as an element I did on purpose, plotted out, that I knew I was going to use an apple to get there. In reality I really quite stumbled onto it. I didn't know until the very minute the apple fell out of her hand that it would lead her to the next scene. I was just relaying what I saw played out in my mind.
It got me to thinking about how I write (how we all write)and how much we can actually plot and how much 'just happens' as we let the story unfold. I'm not a big plot-miester to begin with, but I do generally have an idea of where things are going. And I've heard people talk about the story writing itself, or the characters taking over the story, or doing something even the writer didn't expect. But when I thought about this particular 'bit', it really struck me that I had no idea how I was getting to the next scene (which I knew what the scene was, just not how I was getting there at the moment). And not that I was worried about it at the time, or that I though, boy, how am I going to get from here to there?, I was just wriring scene a and when I got to the end I had the segue to b.
It just came to me, as I watched the story I was writing unfold in my mind. I had the very broad elements, the basics of the scenes, and sometimes nothing more than a phrase. Then as I saw the story with my mind's eye, it filled in the gaps, added the flesh, and even added twists only to untwist them. This may be common place among the rest of you, or perhaps you've never considered it (it's been a while since I've ever thought about it), or maybe something entirely different happens. It just struck me as interesting.
I hope my point is somewhere in this post. I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say, other than to attempt to relate one instance of the creative process, in a hopes to spark discussion on creativity as a whole. [post ends in a whimper]...I guess that's all for now.