Switcheroo

[Finchbearer]

I’ve been doing a lot of pantsing to try and pull myself out of a writing funk. I’ve come to care too much about my stories and characters and has become difficult to just W R I T E. So, I’ve become a reckless pantser, and I’m just writing stuff that I want to write with an off the cuff approach.

The other thing is, I have conducted I lil’ experiment whereby I take my paragraph’s and literally swap over the main two fleshy bits, and it works really well! Almost like a mirror image where you want to jump into that world where everything has been flipped. Seems to freshen it up somehow, and gets me to see how I can write in a slightly different way.

Anyone else do funky things to get yourselves out of writing flumps?

 

[pmmg]

Wow, Finch, getting a little daring there.....

Nope, that pretty much how I do it. Write it ugly, and get it down. Can always go back and make pretty...or not if what you got is already worth keeping.

 

[Finchbearer]

It’s usually after I’ve edited and written something that I’ve considered finished that I’ve then gone and (without thinking too much about it) have switched the paragraph around - but yes, I usually also wrote ugly to begin with just to get those ideas down. Just interesting that I’m trying things that I just wouldn’t usually do

 

[The Dark One]

No, but my process is about 30 years old and is very refined now. I always know where I'm going and write in episodes divided into smaller chunks that always:

- kick the plot along
- answer a previous question
- raise a new question

I'm always writing notes about what happens in the road ahead and delete them as the ideas get used. But the weird thing is... for such a consummate planner as me... despite always writing towards a definite conclusion, I always have a much better idea by the time I get to the end of the first draft.

Weird, but very fulfilling.

 

[Mad Swede]

Not really. But I do have a writing process of sorts:

- write the start and the intended end
- write the key scenes in-between
- write the connecting scenes
- finalise the end
- fill in all the extra details for that added vividness

Bear in mind that I work things out in my head before I write, so I don't do any revisions once I've written.

 

[pmmg]

I do liken scenes between scenes that are plot essential, and connecting scenes, but I certainly don't use the method Mad Swede suggested. I just start at the beginning, and plow through to the end, solving the problems that come up as they go. Most effective for me, is just making it a habit, and keeping my promise small (which is currently only one sentence a night).

What are finding out with your JUST write strategy?

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I don't do anything funky, and I barely rewrite much of anything. I edit my ass off, but I don't write ugly. I have been in a mental funk... during Eve of Snows I recall cussing and sputtering while banging my head on the keyboard while writing a chapter, and I reckoned it total shit until I read it the next day and said, "Oh! That's good." I barely touched a word outside of clean-up on that chapter as I recall.

If I have a funk breaker, it's music. Throw on Eruption by Van Halen, or anything rockin' to get my blood flowing, and off I go.

 

[Finchbearer]

- write the start and the intended end

Well that’s interesting, perhaps I shall try that as an exercise.

 

[Finchbearer]

I don't do anything funky, and I barely rewrite much of anything. I edit my ass off, but I don't write ugly. I have been in a mental funk... during Eve of Snows I recall cussing and sputtering while banging my head on the keyboard while writing a chapter, and I reckoned it total shit until I read it the next day and said, "Oh! That's good." I barely touched a word outside of clean-up on that chapter as I recall.

If I have a funk breaker, it's music. Throw on Eruption by Van Halen, or anything rockin' to get my blood flowing, and off I go.

I’ve definitely done it where I’ve written what I think is a load of garbage and then looked at it with fresh eyes and thought, oh that’s actually good!

 

[Finchbearer]

I’m definitely finding more of my ‘style’ as I’m going along, more lyrical and richly descriptive, goes with my subject matter that I often write about - folklore, myth and legend in a historical context.