Crazy or Not
Earlier today I was working on the book that I talked about in my post last week, Attack On the Clause, when I got to the end of a battle between a couple of guys that ended peacefully. I made the comment, "Huh, didn't see that coming." My mother immediately asked what I didn't see coming. I explained it to my mother, and she found it too funny not to share. she went that very minute to the living room to share the story with my dad, who joked that I was schizophrenic. I can see their point that it might sound a little odd that I didn't see an outcome coming in a book of my own writing, but this might be an ideal time to explain my writing process.
My books usually start with a single scene that I can see played out in my mind. It may be the beginning of a story, the ending of a story, or any one scene between beginning and end. From there all I have to do next is imagine the rest of the story before, after, or around it. Easy, right? Not always.
Sometimes I may have every detail of point F worked out in my mind, but I have no idea how to get from point A to point F. I might have point S and point Z in mind, muddle my way through to point N and have no idea how to get from point N to point S. That is just a complicated way of saying that I don't always know how to get a story to the point where I need it to be. So, what do I do?
As my niece told me just yesterday, "I think you're going to have to just face it." When I get stuck like that, the best thing to do is to sit down at the computer and simply do it. I'll sit down and maybe introduce a character or start a conversation and just follow where the story takes me from there. When I get on a roll, I can see the story playing out in my mind. All I have to do is type fast enough to keep up with it. That's not to say that the fluff I started with doesn't have to be edited or tweaked later, but it gets me moving to my end target.
When I sat down this morning to work on the book, I was in the middle of a big fight scene. I had no idea when I started with these two specific characters where things were headed, but I followed the story. If you had asked me last week or even yesterday if any of the characters would end things peaceably with out some sort of major scuffle, I would have said no, therefore, no, I didn't see it coming.
Maybe my process still seems a little odd, but it works for me. Am I crazy or not? I'll leave that up to you.
