A man with questions

[Raptornet]

With such an inquiring title, I hope someone will take the bait and reply to my post.

 

First a little background on myself.

 

I've never written a book before, but I have written stories. First in my youth and then later, I used to run what is called a PBEM role playing game. Sort of a sci-fic, Dungeons and Dragons in space, where the game is played via email, writing the actions of your character in novel or script format and sending it out for other players/writers to respond. By replying with the actions of his or her character. So you always have a developing story which is guided by the people writing.

 

As something of a writer, I found this to be a wonderful way to excercise the old grey matter.

 

However over time, I've had this itch to turn my writing skills towards something more structured, like a book. But I just dont know how to begin, I have the concept of the story in my head, the characters ect. I read recently your either a planner or a writer. I've always been one to just write and see where it takes me.

 

So I'd really like to know how others of you go about your writing..Do you just sit down and type or do you plan out Act 1, Act 2 ect?

 

I'd be very grateful for any insight people can share

 

Thanks

James

[Guest]

...However over time, I've had this itch to turn my writing skills towards something more structured, like a book. ...

A few quick and random thoughts:

 

Bold mine. There's the key, for me. Structure demands a plan. Those who can 'just write and see where it takes them', while producing something of novel length and remaining coherent and remembering who did what to whom and why, have my admiration.

 

I like detailed character biographies. If you know your characters' personality, background, etc., then you know their motivations and likely reactions, and as such you can't stray too far into 'He did what? Why?!' territory.

 

I also really enjoy plotting; minutely, scene by scene. If you have several plot threads weaving their way through the story, then a plan is essential unless you want to have ends coming loose and ending up unravelling the entire fabric of the thing.

 

It depends on the genre - write a crime novel without a plan, I dare you - and, of course, YMMV, but I couldn't write from A to Z without first having most, if not all, of the other letters tightly slotted into their respective places.

[De Batz]

Now then. I think the answer to this depends on what sort of thing you're writing. I can write short pieces without a plan, and often do this as a sort of technical exercise: think of a character and a situation and see how they respond. You get a feel for writing truthfully, because you don't bend your characters to your plot.

Having said that, I'm writing at length from a plan that's well over 100 chapters in length. I'm up to about 25 at the moment, and a few things have forcibly deviated themselves from their original directions, if only because the characters did things I wasn't expecting! I found actually that history, with its fixed events, is a good way (for me) to structure. There are certain things that have to happen...

In a sense, everything I write is a little like the process you have described, just that all the scripting comes from me, and no one else is involved.

 

Andy

[Guest]

...a few things have forcibly deviated themselves from their original directions, if only because the characters did things I wasn't expecting! ...

What do you think of the notion that if you know your characters they should never surprise you? You can surprise them, and the readers, by [insert dastardly intervention here], but as you know your characters better than you know yourself, their reactions to any given situation shouldn't come as a surprise.

[De Batz]

No, not true, at least not as far as my experience of writing this particular book informs me. One thought would be that seeing as how I couldn't predict my own reactions to situations, I wouldn't be able to do that for another person - unless they were hopelessly one-dimensional - at all. Another way of thinking about it would be that my characters change as the book develops, and therefore what would be in their pre-book make-up wouldn't be the same as later on, and that part of the process of getting to know these characters was putting them in these situations.

But then, my attitude was to create loosely bound characters who would reveal themselves as we went, rather than to define the characters at the beginning. But like I said before, my story is historical, and therefore bound to certain unavoidable events. I had to leave myself a certain flexibility to get things to the right place at the right time!

 

Andy

[Guest]

...One thought would be that seeing as how I couldn't predict my own reactions to situations, I wouldn't be able to do that for another person - unless they were hopelessly one-dimensional - at all. ...

The thing is, though, you've created these characters. You've lovingly crafted them. You know their fears, their desires, their flaws, their hidden strengths,... everything, and everything about how and why those characteristics came to be and how the characters will learn and develop. You couldn't possibly claim to know yourself - or anyone else in the real world - as well as you know your characters.

...Another way of thinking about it would be that my characters change as the book develops, and therefore what would be in their pre-book make-up wouldn't be the same as later on, and that part of the process of getting to know these characters was putting them in these situations. ...

I think the characters change because you cause them to change. You put them in a novel situation and they react consistently because that's the way a character with those characteristics - no matter how wonderful and original that collection of characteristics - will react in that situation. You show character growth as the novel progresses and they learn from experience, but that's under your control.

...But then, my attitude was to create loosely bound characters who would reveal themselves as we went, rather than to define the characters at the beginning. ...

I think they do gradually reveal themselves to the reader, but that process is guided by you. You might conjure up novel situations as you go along, but you know how your character will deal with, say, your sudden desire to have a villain threaten to bite off their ears and shove flaming carrots up their nose, and you know how they'll develop from that experience.

 

Usual disclaimers about opinions and such like apply .

[joiner andy]

reckon im going to start writing!

[Raptornet]

Hi there

 

Thanks for the replies. In answer to some of your questions, the genre is science fiction. I've never had a real problem writing a story and keeping track of the direction of the characters. Perhaps this is because I never have more then the main plot going on or due to the fact I have never attempted anything on the scale of a novel.

 

That was my main reason for asking other writers regarding how they go about taking an idea and put it in to words.

I can understand why writing down the outline of the story is good, but writing down the characters seems a little unnecessary to me. As they are all creations of my own imagination, so all that information is stored in that dusty library I call my brain :-)

 

I've been watching a lot of old 1940-60's sci fic and the one thing that struck me. Was the opimisim running throughout the stories. The characters might lack depth, but when I'm in the throws of an adventure. I dont really need to know if the hero had a terrible child hood.

I think what stands them up, is the sheer simplicity of good verses evil. Where the hero is fighting evil because it's the right thing to do and not due to some odd event in his or her past. I guess the best example is Batman and Superman.

One is driven by a traumatic childhood event, which makes him a layered, dark, moody character fighting in justice for personal reasons. Where the latter is doing it due to a set of elevated, utopian ideals.

 

Using that old recipe, I've really felt the urge to write some sort of science adventure, cowboys in space romp.

 

Again I'd like to thank people for replying

James

[De Batz]

I've been watching a lot of old 1940-60's sci fic and the one thing that struck me. Was the opimisim running throughout the stories. The characters might lack depth, but when I'm in the throws of an adventure. I dont really need to know if the hero had a terrible child hood.

 

James

 

Now the thing is that what I need to know as a reader is different to what you need to know to write the character in the first place. So you might find that if you get your character into a really unusual situation you learn something about them that you didn't know before.

 

 

Hecate: I could derive Pythagoras' law for you, so I know that. I know the derivation of the Lorentz Contraction. I also know that 2+2=4. The difference is that I couldn't give you the first two without having to sit with a a bit of paper and do something. This is what I'm getting at. I have to go through the imaginative process of putting the characters in the situation to know what they'd do. Otherwise I seem to be claiming that everything that is or has ever been in my head is transparently and immediately available. It isn't. All I'm really suggesting is that there's an effort of imagination involved in figuring out what they do, but that sometimes when you take into account a detail that hadn't appeared significant before, it changes their behaviour.

[Guest]

...The difference is that I couldn't give you the first two without having to sit with a a bit of paper and do something. This is what I'm getting at. ...

That's a little different from what I meant. I don't expect ideas for characters' activities and interactions to leap, fully-formed, onto the page. I meant that a character, like a real person, behaves according to his or her personality, experiences and motivations. Unlike real life, the writer has the benefit of a thorough understanding of that personality, and of those experiences and motivations, having crafted them him or herself.

...I have to go through the imaginative process of putting the characters in the situation to know what they'd do. Otherwise I seem to be claiming that everything that is or has ever been in my head is transparently and immediately available. It isn't. All I'm really suggesting is that there's an effort of imagination involved in figuring out what they do, but that sometimes when you take into account a detail that hadn't appeared significant before, it changes their behaviour.

Of course you have to think about how characters might respond to a novel situation. My point was that response isn't surprising to the writer who created them, because a realistic character behaves as a real person: according to their personality, experiences and motivations.

 

A broad example: you'll conjure up an ingenious plan for your smart, feisty, confident detective to spring in response to the flaming carrots/nostril interaction, but that plan will always betray that she's smart, feisty and confident; she wouldn't, for example, surprise you by cowering and begging the villain to spare her... unless it's a cunning bluff. You'd always predict the nature of the response by virtue of knowing - of creating - her.