Novel Writing
Sep. 30th, 2004 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmerriamMove 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
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
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-02 06:18 pm (UTC)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.