- Thread starter
- #21
summondice, thanks for contributing. Like you, I'm finding the discussion both interesting and useful.
The process you describe sounds like how I wrote my first novel. I don't know how I could have approached it any other way. I had armloads of things that *could* happen a few things I thought had to happen that turned out didn't, and a mere thimble full of things from those early days that wound up in the final version. But without that armload at the start, I wouldn't have found some of the secondary characters that appear, would never have hit on how the story ends, and very likely wouldn't have got the thing written at all. Stumbling forward still counts as progress!
That said, I can't do the next one like the first one. Every project has unfolded in its own way. I like to think my attempts at wrangling (being orderly) have had at least some positive effect, but I'll never really know. I do stand in dumbfounded awe at my fellow writers who somehow manage not only to see the shape of their story early on, but manage to make the finished product look like that vision. To this writer, it looks like some sort of magic trick.
The process you describe sounds like how I wrote my first novel. I don't know how I could have approached it any other way. I had armloads of things that *could* happen a few things I thought had to happen that turned out didn't, and a mere thimble full of things from those early days that wound up in the final version. But without that armload at the start, I wouldn't have found some of the secondary characters that appear, would never have hit on how the story ends, and very likely wouldn't have got the thing written at all. Stumbling forward still counts as progress!
That said, I can't do the next one like the first one. Every project has unfolded in its own way. I like to think my attempts at wrangling (being orderly) have had at least some positive effect, but I'll never really know. I do stand in dumbfounded awe at my fellow writers who somehow manage not only to see the shape of their story early on, but manage to make the finished product look like that vision. To this writer, it looks like some sort of magic trick.