What is it for you? I tend to brainstorm something to death before I get words on the page... I find it difficult to accept something as good unless it feels right, and if I don't have a context for it worked out, I don't usually feel good about it. I mean, I might write something that looks good, but without a proper context for it, I tend to think "That's nice; what is it for?"
How many of you brave souls plow ahead and write something without knowing where it's going? How many of you are like me and can't step one foot out into the dark unknown without knowing exactly where you're trying to go? And how many of you are in between?
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I like to know how something ends before I begin...my last stab at a novel aborted at one hundred thousand words because I had no idea where it was going to go from the hundred thousand word point. (One of these days I must dig it out and reread it; maybe I can salvage something.)
Some of my ideas sit for years before I do anything with them...others emerge full-blown and have to be dealt with before I can move on with anything else.
Posted by axeminister (Member # 8991) on :
I'm forced into spending a lot of time away from the keyboard. (Although you wouldn't know it by my post count today.) I mean, writing keyboard.
So, when I think of something, I may start it, or not, but I think and think on it - IF, it's a keeper.
I write the keepers to shut them up.
Axe
Posted by EVOC (Member # 9381) on :
The amount of brainstorming I do seems to be proportionate to the size of the work.
The novel I wrote first, I thought it over for a long time, years at least. I am finally comfortable with a rewrite on it, because the first draft was well bad.
On my shorter works, I am finding that I don't need to brainstorm as long. Some of them were only brainstormed over for a day. Others a couple of days or weeks.
Of course I do have a couple of great ideas for the start of some, but I just can't think of where it will go from there.
I don't outline, so I think that is why my Novels take so long to get to paper. I have to think it over start to finish.
Posted by Wordcaster (Member # 9183) on :
I ditto axe. I have so much time away from the keyboard that it is more than enough brainstorming time.
Posted by Natej11 (Member # 8547) on :
It depends. If I'm at my computer I'll just sit down and start writing, using any breaks I take to plan ahead a little to the next scene and good dialogue zingers. If I have to be away for a while for work or anything I'll usually spend the time thinking in more detail about upcoming scenes, trying to remember the good bits so I can put them down as soon as I get home.
Posted by enigmaticuser (Member # 9398) on :
On my last work, I got to about 80-90k before I met the villain. I think his name came up earlier, but the story seemed to do fine without him actually showing up until then. I was really trying to write a world with no rules including where the plot had to go.
Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :
I'm a pantser, I often only know the rough sketches of what's going to happen before I sit down to write. I feel like the details evolve with me as it goes. I probably spend a total of 2-3 hrs brainstorming/writing up my ideas before I start writing.
However, I'm a big big fan of the concept of "percolating" an idea (remember old coffee percolators? Yeah, me neither but my mom had one...) I put an idea on the back burners in my mind and sort of day dream about the story here and there. That's where the stuff I do actually write down in brainstorming comes from, usually. Or sticky notes I've scribbled things down on or the notebook i keep in my purse or the back of receipts or... you get the idea. But the actual writing time (including writing on the backs of those receipts) is very little compared to what I spend writing the actual piece.
This is just me and my style and what I've fallen into as a technique that works. Everyone seems to have a little different spin on their own solution.
But the actual writing time (including writing on the backs of those receipts) is very little compared to what I spend writing the actual piece.