it’s heartening to hear other authors say:
"Rothfuss: Assuming I had any sort of plan at the beginning is a big mistake. I just started writing. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know what I was doing."
One thing that seems to throw a lot of people is how a professional author such as myself can say they started a series by making some shit up and throwing it at a page. Now that I’m published, people forget when I started what eventually became Stormcaller, I had no contract, little skill and no clue. I learned as a I wrote – if I’d planned the series in any sort of detail before I’d finished book 1, I might well have trimmed the threads and characters rather than let the story evolve into the story it felt like it was trying to be. Might have worked well, might have ruined such inherent charms it now possesses… point it, I knew as little as anyone who wants to write a book and was only half-decent in English class – I just learned a little faster than most I suspect.
I’m the other way entirely — I find it hard to understand not having a plan. You can always change the plan, and I often did. There were major developments in writing my trilogy that I did not foresee. But still, I sat down somet time in the first week with a bit of A4 an decided where I wanted to take the story and even though it took me eight years, (still can’t stop being all ???!!!?! over that) that was more or less where I ended up. I just can’t imagine what it would have been like to try and make it all that way without that. And as a reader, I like to feel I’m in the hands of an author who knows where she’s heading.
But then I also don’t revise all that much. If I can’t get everything at least right-ish the first time, I find it hard to carry on.
And if I were planning a series of inter-related but freestanding books rather than a series in which each volume was one part of an overarching story, I wouldn’t neccessarily plan out all of them. I have a book planned that could lead to sequels, but I’ve only planned the first one.
Oh I’m not denying a plan’s a good idea and couldn’t do without one now – just saying when i started out it seemed like a bit too much effort to plan anything then! Has caused me a few headaches that….
I’m the other way entirely — I find it hard to understand not having a plan. You can always change the plan, and I often did. There were major developments in writing my trilogy that I did not foresee. But still, I sat down somet time in the first week with a bit of A4 an decided where I wanted to take the story and even though it took me eight years, (still can’t stop being all ???!!!?! over that) that was more or less where I ended up. I just can’t imagine what it would have been like to try and make it all that way without that. And as a reader, I like to feel I’m in the hands of an author who knows where she’s heading.
But then I also don’t revise all that much. If I can’t get everything at least right-ish the first time, I find it hard to carry on.
And if I were planning a series of inter-related but freestanding books rather than a series in which each volume was one part of an overarching story, I wouldn’t neccessarily plan out all of them. I have a book planned that could lead to sequels, but I’ve only planned the first one.
Oh I’m not denying a plan’s a good idea and couldn’t do without one now – just saying when i started out it seemed like a bit too much effort to plan anything then! Has caused me a few headaches that….
Whenever I’ve tried to do fiction I’ll often find myself 20,000 words in with absolutely no idea what it’s actually about.
So what starts you writing then? A character? A phrase stuck in your head?
Dialog usually. I have some kind of brain condition where I make up conversations in my head all day and all night long. Talks between real people. Probably because 90% of everyone is so fucking boring in real life so I make up more interesting discussions.
Goes around in a loop on repeat in my head forever until I write it down, otherwise I go nuts.
;0) I know that feeling! (the last part certanly!) Tends to be glimpses of scenes myself – usually just as i’m heading to sleep so i’m forced to get up and find a notebook…
Whenever I’ve tried to do fiction I’ll often find myself 20,000 words in with absolutely no idea what it’s actually about.
So what starts you writing then? A character? A phrase stuck in your head?
Dialog usually. I have some kind of brain condition where I make up conversations in my head all day and all night long. Talks between real people. Probably because 90% of everyone is so fucking boring in real life so I make up more interesting discussions.
Goes around in a loop on repeat in my head forever until I write it down, otherwise I go nuts.
;0) I know that feeling! (the last part certanly!) Tends to be glimpses of scenes myself – usually just as i’m heading to sleep so i’m forced to get up and find a notebook…