Novel Writing

[mmerriam]

Move Along Home continues to, well, move along. I've reached chapter eleven, and about thirty thousand words.

My question for you gentle reader is this. How do you (or even would you if you've never done it before) approach writing a novel. I ask because I'm basically writing sequentially, moving in a linear way from point A to point B and so on. However, I know that other writers go about it by writing this bit here and that chunk there and connecting the bits and chunks at a later time.

I can see pros and cons to both. With writing non-sequentially, one can write the important or interesting bits, then make the bits connect as needed. But by writing sequentially, I seem more in tune with the continuity of the story. I feel like I'm building the next thing on the bones and muscle of the last thing.

Of course, I don't write completely sequentially. I do write bits of prose, or a scene, and in fact have a tentative ending sketched out for the novel. These I set aside in a special document until the story meanders along to that part, then I plug it in. And I admit that sometimes it helps to have something to write toward, especially if I find myself stuck in the Sargasso Sea that is chapter whatever.

So anyway, tell me how you do it, and more important, tell me why you do it that way.

In Deep Peace
Michael

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

As you can watch on my lj as I wind this book to a close, I work very nonsequentially. Whatever looks like the shiniest thing to be writing is what I write. I am a magpie novelist.

I write this way because it works for me, and because it's my most efficient way to write, and mostly because it didn't occur to me not to. It was one of my ways of shutting up the perfectionist: you don't have to do the very next sentence perfectly, you just have to do a sentence reasonably well.

[damncutekitty.livejournal.com]

I've just begun my very first novel and I started with the opening scene. But only becuase I had to get that scene out of my head. I'm probably going to write the rest in a non-sequential fashion from here on out and just go with whatever piece of the story I am obsessing over that day.

But since I have never written anything other than papers in college and a few short stories in my teen years I could be going about this all wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

I write the way the story is presented to me. Usually that means sequentially because my characters tend to tell me the story the way that I need to write it. But there have been times when the character is too scattered to tell me the whole thing at once and then I get it in bits and pieces and have to fit it together later. Although I've never gone novel length (and probably won't try until I graduate) I've found that I don't have one process that I use for writing a story. Each story has it's own process but they all end up with a story on paper ready for others to read (well not always- sometimes I end up not liking the story and then no-one gets to read it).

My advice - do what works for you. It sounds like you have a process that's working, you've got 30,000 words already. Don't worry too much about how other people do it, don't even worry about how you're going to do the next one. Get this one on paper (or in the computer) in any way that works.

[(Anonymous)]

Oops forgot to sign that one.

-Mreauow-
www.mreauow.com

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

mmmm shiney bits.

I tend to do that by moving from project to project, so that I find myself working on a novel, three short stories and a gaming project as the whim strikes.

I suppose I'll have to change that once I have to finish a project on a deadline.