Pick the one that you like the best, that you see most clearly in your mind.

After you've written that scene, put it aside, and pick another scene to write, then put it aside and write another scene.

You don't have to write the scenes in the order they will be read in the story. Just write the scene that appeals to you the most, and then the one that appeals to you the most after that one is written, and so on.

When you have written all the scenes you can think of, put them in order, and read through them, fixing anything that you think needs fixing, and adding anything if you need to in order to connect them.

Then get some feedback on the story. Others can often tell you where you need to add things to make the plot stronger, and so on--they aren't as close to the story as you are, and they can see things you can't see. They can also see holes that you didn't know needed filling.

Assignments that come after this one may actually be done before it--they involve things like characterization, description,
dialogue, point of view, and so on.

If you do them after this assignment (which is recommended, because this assignment is the one that gets some semblance of the story down on paper), use them in your rewrite of the story.

<grin>

Yeah, okay, enough loitering... I'm back to work. Honest.

So, this should get Assignments 1-3 in the here and now, and I'll start to work!

Ciao!

I'm having doubts as to whether to work at my story that way, though. I have my plot and conflicts (after 5 years of daydreaming), I have a world, I know most of my characters. The only problem is, I seem to have the middle most clearly in my mind, but no solid start. I'm afraid that if I leave the beginning till last, I'll miss out on important facts that could reverberate throught the rest of the story.

List the things that need to go in the very first scene, then the things that need to go in the next scene, and so on, until you get to the part you really want to write: the middle.

Remember that you are going to have to rewrite it all no matter what part you actually write first, and you can fix the things that you need to have in the beginning when you do the rewrite.

(I'm tempted to tell you to go ahead and just write the middle with the flashbacks in there and all. You can certainly cut and paste them from the middle into the beginning when you do the rewrite.)

I just hate to see you lose the energy and momentum you have for the middle. You really should write the part that wants to be written when it is begging you to write it.

Consider, they don't film movies in the order in which they will be seen. If you can think about it as if you were filming the book--use 3x5 cards with notes on them for the scenes you need in the story and make a kind of story board out of them if you have to--you can write what needs to be written when it needs to be written.

THANK you!! I was wasting hours trying to chronologize (sp?) my story.... as *prep* work!!

I can do the fun part first!!

Then the icky chronologizing!!

So I went and wrote everything in chronological order. What I discovered was that as I wrote, I made certain decisions in writing the earlier stuff that changed ideas I had for the ending - and since I didn't already have it down in stone, I could afford to make those changes. Thus my book felt less like a events-support-ending story and more like a events-result-in-ending story, and this made my novel into something much better than what I had initially come up with.

Fiction is another matter. Unless a story comes to me in "one piece" which is rare, but it does happen - I write the scenes/chapters as KDW suggests - and the suggestion is an excellent one. Rather than write out that difficult, nebulous scene/chapter - write around it. Meanwhile your mind will be working out the problems of that hard to write scene or chapter. With more of the story down, ideas and insights often come to me about the "problem" scene which. I'm convinced, might otherwise not have dawned on me at all. The big thing is don't beat yourself silly getting down a scene. When you read it later you will often see the writing is really a reflection of your state of mind (frustration) at the time - and what you have written will come across as forced and rigid without the smooth flow you intended.

[This message has been edited by nitewriter (edited August 06, 2007).]

I know the feeling! I have never thought of writing scenes out of order. I have always felt for some reason that the story had to be told from the beginning to the end and that it couldn’t develop the way is should if you bounced around.

(truth is I never thought of bouncing around) I have though of other scenes but felt guilty for spending time pondering a scene the story hadn’t come to yet. I felt like I was wasting time instead of writing when maybe what I should have been doing is like you said. Write the scene that wants written first.

This idea added to OSC’s response to the question on “distractions” (found in the writing lessons section) made me realize that some of the tangents I find myself thinking about while writing might be my (creative muse) trying to throw me the proverbial bone.

I can’t wait to try this idea and see if I can’t get more of my story written this way. Up until now I have found it hard to continue when I hit a roadblock, now I can go around and come back later.

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