How I write

[Cross-posted from Blank Slate because I want to go to bed right now instead of writing a whole new post. :P]

How do I write? Spurts (squeezed out by deadlines) have been most common for me, but I agree with David that a regular, set time each day is far more productive. And prolific. Sure, it’s hard, but once you get started it does get easier (the power of momentum). And geysers doth not a writer make. :)

On a smaller scale, whether I outline, freewrite, or just start typing (or all three) really varies from piece to piece. Usually I freewrite to snag the idea, then write down the flanking idealets that trail it down, and for the rest of the piece I alternate between outlining and writing, switching whenever I get stuck.

Case in point: for the play I’m currently working on, Encyclopedia, I got the core idea a couple weeks ago while reading in Mosiah. Just a seed, really. Then this afternoon I sat down with the intention of writing out a scene, to get some raw material out there that I could begin to work with, and also to see if I would get any direction on the plot (since at that point all I had was a single concept). As I wrote the first three sentences of the initial scene description, though, a flood of ideas came crashing in, and a page of notes later — to my surprise — I had the complete skeletal outline for the play. All before writing a single word of dialogue.

But I still don’t know why one of the characters is getting himself involved in the play’s events, or what he’s trying to accomplish. I’ve thought about it and yet nothing’s coming. So the next step will be writing out that first scene and bringing him on stage to see what he says, because it’s often in that first draft that I’ll find some glimmer of a motive that I can then dig out.

I do find that the more I know in advance — who my characters are, what makes them tick, the plot arc, etc. — the easier the play is. And yet there’s something to be said for just sitting down and writing, too, cutting out a slab of clay and throwing it on the table to see what’s inside it. I like going back and forth between the two — outlining and writing — so I get a nice mixture of structure and organic, solid and liquid, order and chaos. :)

Isn’t it funny how characters and even ideas will write themselves? Of course you have to be doing something (freewriting, typing, outlining–like you mentioned), but it always surprises me what they will do and where they will go.

I really like Carly’s comment. My characters that are completely out of control are the ones I feel are the most fleshed out and “real” because of how little control I have over them. In the sense that you are a play writer, I’ll put it like this. I have scripts for characters, and when I approach a response, or the next scene, I go in thinking, this character will totally respond this way; but when I step out there onto the stage, and slide into character for that person…it usually goes the totally opposite direction. I just let the pen/keyboard go and then come out afterwards, look back, and shake my head. “[Insert character] is totally crazy.” But those are my favorite characters to work with, but when you get right down to their motives and reactions, they write themselves. That to me, as I’ve already said, is an indication of a well-written, fleshed-out, non-flat character. :)

Carly: Quite true. Makes me wonder if we really are creating or if, through some weird science fictionesque magic, we’re just discovering what’s already there.

David: Exactly — if we try to control them, we end up with cardboard. It’s better to just let go and enjoy watching them do their thing.