So how do you write?

[B.R.Stateham]

An idea for a novel plops into your brain matter suddenly and unexpectedly. How do you begin? Is the idea a complete novel--or just an intriguing 'scene' that needs to be fleshed out? Is it an opening scene? A comment said?

So you begin writing--do you outline the entire book first? Or do you just plow into the first chapter and build from that? Do you edit each page as you finish or do you keep on writing? Someone once said Hemingway did one page a day. When someone asked him why it took so long to write a novel, he replied "I just want to get the words right."

How do you write?

[B.R.Stateham]

So Joe---how long does it take you to write a novel?

[Joe Barone]

Usually a first scene with an interesting character. Then six weeks of thinking and listing and sleeping on what is going to happen. Then with a rough list of events and, sometimes, a few sections written, I write the thing straight through. Some plans change while I am writing.

I didn't do my first published novel The Body in the Record Room that way. I was just learning, and it shows, but I do that now.

[B.R.Stateham]

I know the feeling, buddy. I know the feeling! (laughing)

[Bob]

Exactly, twas a beginners folly.

[B.R.Stateham]

Bob!
A 40,000 word outliine for a novel? Why didn't you just try to sell the outline? (grinning)

[Bob]

The genre has a lot to do with the requirement for an outline. In crime/mystery the everyday world presents endless opportunities for visions of criminal acts. You enter a grocery store and see the head teller with a bag containing thousands going till to till gathering more money...there is a crime in the waiting. I believe you need to detail the crime and the crime scene. From there, let the characters drive the story. Most important, finish the novel before you go back to edit/review. The best place to outine is after the first draft is complete. An outline at that stage highlights wholes in the plot. I have to chuckle since I started with detailed 40,000 word outlines that ended up as fuel for the fire when my characters hijacked the story.

Smiles
Bob

[John McFetridge]

Usually I get an idea for a scene - some kind of character interaction. I used to make notes for the scene but now I just write it out. After I have a few of these scenes I try and put them in some kind of order and fill in the blanks between them. When that makes up a big enough chunk I start to think about putting together a novel.

At least that was how I used to do it. For the novel I'm working on now I actually started at the beginning and I'm writing through to the end. It feels weird ;)

[B.R.Stateham]

The part I like about writing without an outline is the plotting I do in my head AFTER I set up a specific scene. How do I get from A to B coherently? I like twists and turns in my novels, so I'm constantly thinking of this ploy or that--and many times running into roadblocks that tell me this or that will will work.

So I backtrack. Sometimes I rewrite the scene. Most of the time I just let my imagination run free. This is the 'discovey thru writing' that I said I enjoyed the most.

[Clair Dickson]

Yes. I get ideas, scenes, snippets, characters, conflicts. I teach alternative high school, so that provides a lot of fodder for stories.

I'm not an outliner, but that's really a boxers/briefs question. Plenty of authors do outline... including plot twists at the end that no one can predict. Plenty don't. It's just personal preference. The more I write, the more I find that I can only go so far in a story (maybe half way, sometimes not even that far) without knowing where I'm going to end up. I don't outline it or plan the scenes, I just need to know what the resolution will be. I still have times where my imagination bypasses my brain and heads straight out my fingers, thus surprising my with my own writing.

I write as much as I can each day. Sometimes it's a lot. Sometimes it's nothing. (Hey, with four jobs, sometimes it's a miracle I even get to sleep, let alone write.) Sometimes I edit as I go, sometimes not. I write where the story takes me, but like to look ahead to see where we're going to come out.

I write like I walk. I don't think about it, I just do it.

[B.R.Stateham]

There you go, Eric. That's the ticket! And it's a hell of a lot more fun doing it that way. I am constantly surprised what my two characters in my police-procedurals get themselves into.--and out of!