Re-plotting
Samuel Beckett, you “try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
I'm not going to lie, I love outlining and then I love to go about writing and ignoring all my outlining ( I am trying to get better).
However, recently I 'pants-ed' a story. For those of you unfamiliar with that it means to sit down and write until it's finished with no idea where the story is going to take you.
I learned a few things by doing this.
The first is that it is an extremely free way to write. You don't have to worry about research or time or word count or how to get from point A to point B. It's also quick. I had the first draft written before I knew it. It gives you a really good sense of where you would like you're story to go. It gave me a huge insight into my characters and how'd they would at and react to what I threw at them.
Then, if you're like me, you have to change everything about it. That's the not-so-fun part. I learned that I am incapable of keeping track of plot-holes. I have no natural sense of pacing. Almost every second chapter I had a new character or my main character was saving someone. The rest of the chapters were dull.
In other words, it was great to write and terrible to read.
So I have to change it and change it fast. (Then get rid of the evidence and pretend to be extremely gifted. Mwhahaha!)
Many characters have been axed to start with. It was getting a little cramped in there. This hurt. I really did enjoy those characters but they had to go.
I am plotting out the chapters now, and most of what I written is going in...just not in the same order or the same way. The dull bits I buried.
I usually do my outlining before writing and it takes only a few hours. This time I'm not going in blind and it's taken a week so far.
I don't know if I would do this again. I;m waiting to find out how it all turns out first before I make that decision.
Keep well and keep writing,
Ci.
I'm not going to lie, I love outlining and then I love to go about writing and ignoring all my outlining ( I am trying to get better).
However, recently I 'pants-ed' a story. For those of you unfamiliar with that it means to sit down and write until it's finished with no idea where the story is going to take you.
I learned a few things by doing this.
The first is that it is an extremely free way to write. You don't have to worry about research or time or word count or how to get from point A to point B. It's also quick. I had the first draft written before I knew it. It gives you a really good sense of where you would like you're story to go. It gave me a huge insight into my characters and how'd they would at and react to what I threw at them.
Then, if you're like me, you have to change everything about it. That's the not-so-fun part. I learned that I am incapable of keeping track of plot-holes. I have no natural sense of pacing. Almost every second chapter I had a new character or my main character was saving someone. The rest of the chapters were dull.
In other words, it was great to write and terrible to read.
So I have to change it and change it fast. (Then get rid of the evidence and pretend to be extremely gifted. Mwhahaha!)
Many characters have been axed to start with. It was getting a little cramped in there. This hurt. I really did enjoy those characters but they had to go.
I am plotting out the chapters now, and most of what I written is going in...just not in the same order or the same way. The dull bits I buried.
I usually do my outlining before writing and it takes only a few hours. This time I'm not going in blind and it's taken a week so far.
I don't know if I would do this again. I;m waiting to find out how it all turns out first before I make that decision.
Keep well and keep writing,
Ci.
Comments
Post a Comment