Quote:
Originally Posted by skb
Thanks rcentros and GMW.
rcentros, I did try the "write something else" thing. It certainly got the creative juices flowing. However, that's the story (now several stories) that is breeding like bunnies. So far it's a nice family of bunnies - not like the killer bunny from Monty Python's Holy Grail. Yet.
GMW I love that aphorism from Sontag. She's absolutely spot on, of course. I can also identify with the shower epiphany.
I now try to write all my eureka moments (or even only vaguely eureka-ish) either into my notebook or into my phone's notes app. It doesn't always work, of course. Currently I have a note saying "reindeer on the roof" which seemed noteworthy when I wrote it (??) but now, for the life of me, I can't remember why. I can't bring myself to delete that either.
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There's a reason that many truly great mystery novelists start out writing the murder scene first--not the discovery, the murder itself--from the standpoint of the murderer--the scene that will never been seen in the actual book. That's because while it's fascinating to write up the red herrings, the characters, etc., it's nearly impossible to do (for mere mortals; I speaketh not of the exalted heights of the Dame or Rex Stout, etc., who could apparently poop plots and murders with their morning coffee) without knowing all that which is hidden, first. Without knowing precisely what the murderer did, that equals errors or clues.
I have no real idea how fantasy authors do it--given that you have to work out your per-book plot arc and your per-trilogy/whatever plot arcs--but I imagine it's much the same. One big long mind-map or similar/org chart type thing, moving through all the plotlines.
Honestly, it would drive me bonkers to write, write, write and NOT know how I was going to wrap up the end, or, like GMW wrote, not know what that sibling was going to do, or how she'd tie into everything. Waiting for that Eureka! moment? I could never do it. I'd live in dread that it would never come, and I would have to go back and revamp and rejigger everything to make it work, due to some horrible oversight.
(FWIW--before I chucked writing, dog's years ago, I had this happen. I'd written out not one, but two novels, one with >65K words, and both had fatal flaws. FATAL. The kind where you just have to either toss them, or live with one of those "TSTL" plot elements. Like the ubiquitous mystery or suspense/etc., where the hero/ine is haunted by the ghost of the dead person, and
doesn't just ASK the decedent who the hell killed him/her. I mean..urgh! I guess it's fine if your audience is going to give you a pass--you write up some drivel about WHY the ghost can't tell the hero/ine, but I just can't live with that. The plot's got to work for me, in minute, believable detail, or I just couldn't keep going with it. No doubt why I decided decades ago that I wasn't meant to be an author.)
:-)
Hitch