For your characters' own growth...?

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm just starting a new WIP. I'm not supposed to be 'cos I have others to do but it wants out...

As ever, I haven't planned much (okay, nothing ) but I have an early emerging character who is intriguing. She might be a baddy or she might come out as a goody, I'm really not sure yet. (Planners, I know your toes are curling, sorry )

The thing is, because I'm not sure I'm writing her as herself, with no tainted bent for story purposes. In my last book - which used a couple of unreliable narrators - this paid off as I had no idea who the antagonist was until the end of the first draft by which time I already had complete empathy for her.

I watched a show last year about Ian Rankin's story writing approach and he, too, had little idea of the story when he started writing and I wondered then if this was made his stories - and the mysteries at the centre of them - so seamless and organic?

So is this a benefit of not planning, or just shoddy laziness on my part?

 

[AMB]

If it works for you, it is a legitimate process. It's only shoddy laziness if it fails.

 

[Bowler1]

I'm just starting a new WIP. I'm not supposed to be 'cos I have others to do but it wants out...

Good for you. Don't ever fight the muse.


I am a planner. I like to plan and I think it's good to have a plan. Yet... there has to be room for the creative process and sometimes that takes you places that were never planned. In my current WIP, two characters have elbowed their way on stage demanding my attention. Their not boring, so they get to stay. Sadly, there is only so much room on the stage and only so many threads I want in the plot, so some cutting and pruning has to be done. In my next edit, a character gets written out. Almost worse than death that, he never was and never will be soon.


Anyway... my point being - no plan survives contact with the enemy.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Yeah I agree with AMB. I find it useful not to know who the antagonist is. However just because she's a baddy doesn't mean she can't be your protagonist.

 

[tinkerdan]

I have done the plan and I have gone by the seat of my pants and I can honestly say that the more fun way was seat of the pants.

The thing of it is is that the plan becomes like one of those baby's that everyone talks about having to give up to make the story better- or make it work.

That's usually what I found by the end of the first draft. But I've never written a finished work on first drafts so it really doesn't matter which way gets you there. You write from start to finish from top to bottom from first sentence to final revelation and then you sit down and begin the editing process.

It's in the editing process that the real plan becomes evident. By then you have a fair idea of what works in the story and what doesn't and who shine and who becomes too dull.

And if you had a plan to begin with I'll venture a guess your intestines are all twisted because some other character stole all the spotlight and now you have to figure out how to get that back for the protagonist.

I started one plan where there was a husband wife team that were going to be the main characters to solve the big mystery and I started out with them and added a sort of bridge character that was in their camp but also in the enemy camp so they could make use of her.

As things developed I realized that the most interesting character was the one in both camps and her struggle to do good by the one who hired her while becoming slowly loyal to the ones she was paid to betray.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

If it works for you, it is a legitimate process. It's only shoddy laziness if it fails.

"It's only weird if it doesn't work."

(That's the tagline from a set of commercials that the National Football League has been running lately, about all the strange things that people have for superstitions about their teams winning.)

I started a story recently, where the farther I got, the more I began to be convinced that my protagonist was a con man. He didn't start out that way.

 

[AMB]

TDZ: He was always a con man, you just got conned.

 

[Triceratops]

I think just diving in and seeing where the story takes you is an excellent way to start. I do it when I'm completely blocked, fearful or procrastinating. It begins to build up momentum without any forced effort. You can always go back and revise, add or take away. Give yourself permission to hit the plastic keys, instead of what your negative muse is telling you to do or shouldn't do. Flying by the seat of your pants--nothing wrong with it.

 

[DaCosta]

If you don't know where it's going, you can bet the reader doesn't either - plus, as the author, we get to go back and tighten the text with more layers of intrigue.
I find that's the toughest part of planning (knowing what's going to happen) but I lose the suspense and wonder if I'm giving too much away. As always it depends on the book and you.

 

[Hex]

I have trouble writing bad guys who are properly bad. When John Jarrold edited my first ms, he pointed out that my bad guy was really kind of pathetic and lost (which had been the idea, but apparently it wasn't one that worked) -- in the climax he really only behaved horribly because he lost his temper.

Nowadays, I try to have a clear idea of who my bad guy is as early as possible because it's one of the things I need to keep an eye on. Having said that, in the last story I wrote, my favourite super-evil bad girl only came in on the last real edit, and she's the best bad guy I've written.

I don't plan much because for me that kills the fun of writing -- I'd much rather write a lightly outlined first draft to find out where things are going, and that means I'll have chunks of text I can keep when I write the next version too. However, where I have weaknesses I know about -- like bad guys and getting the structure of the story right -- I try to plan for them so that they're at the forefront of my mind as I write.

I don't think it's laziness. There's a lot more re-writing if you don't plan. It's just about knowing what works for you.

 

[Brian G Turner]

So is this a benefit of not planning, or just shoddy laziness on my part?

I don't think you can plan inspiration.

 

[Boneman]

I don't think you can plan inspiration.

THIS!! And unless you're supremely talented, I don't think you can truly plan creativity - it's constantly in flux, and it's up to you to meld it, either with ideas or with plans. Whatever works for you. Go with the flow...

Once an idea hits me, the urge is to write, write, write, right? As I write, more ideas emerge and go into my 'whatif' file, which sooner or later (mostly later) merges into a plan. Sometimes I go back and remove characters or chapters, because the original idea didn't fit with the new ones. It's been said you need to know the beginning and the end, but nobody ever says exactly when you need to know those things. The ending of one of my stories came to me when I was about 40,000 words into the first book of a trilogy, as I was cutting the grass. About a year later I changed it, when a better idea hit me.

Ideas begat plans, not the other way round, though I have a sneaky admiration for the organised planner.

 

[SevenStars]

I don't think you can plan inspiration.

So true!

I think that when some idea or some character is calling you strongly as this girl is to you, then you have to follow it - she wants you to tell her story, so do it and good luck with it all

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I watched a show last year about Ian Rankin's story writing approach and he, too, had little idea of the story when he started writing and I wondered then if this was made his stories - and the mysteries at the centre of them - so seamless and organic?

So is this a benefit of not planning, or just shoddy laziness on my part?

A great way to transmit to your readers the sense of excitement that comes from not knowing 'what happens next' is not to know what happens next. There are limits to this technique, however...