Thursday, November 30, 2006

Getting Ahead of Myself

I did something recently on a book I was working on that I’d never done before. And after all these years, there aren’t very many writing tricks that I haven’t tried. I wrote the ending of this book before I got to it. Usually my method is to go straight through a project, start to finish, without skipping around. But I was writing along on this book when it suddenly occurred to me how it should end, so I went ahead and moved down a ways in the file and wrote the final two paragraphs, so they were already done when I got to that point. I revised them slightly to make them fit better with the paragraphs leading up to them, but I didn’t make many changes. They wound up pretty much the way I originally wrote them.

I should point out that while I always know in a general way how a book is going to end, this is the first time the actual words came to me ahead of time like that. I was surprised but pleased. I always like the chance to try something new when I’m writing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your pardon if you've written of this before, but do you outline your projects in any detail?

I'm always astounded by how many authors just charge ahead into a story without any kind of road map.

meika said...

no outline because it would ruin finding out where the road goes and you would speed by in a jet pane and miss all the lovely little spots to sit down and have a good think, about where it was you thought you were going

I'd suggest outlines are good for the second draft

Anonymous said...

Well, Louis L'Amour, Elmore Leonard, Loren Estleman, Stephen King and Flannery O'Connor all write/wrote without using an outline, so you're in good company, meika.

I'm afraid I'd wander off among all the "lovely little spots to sit down & have a good think" and never find my way back to the story.
Wish I could be more spontaneous, but I guess I'm not wired that way.