Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
I have key scenes and a rough idea of what happens, but mostly I just leave the characters to get on with it by themselves. So the first draft would be the closest I get to having an outline. I can see how it would save writing time by having it all mapped out in advance, but it would take me months of planning to do that before I even got to write anything. Even then it would probably end up changing.
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If I have a method (highly unlikely), then I'm with mr ploppy.
I do remember watching late night chat shows and hearing famous writers say that their characters just wrote themselves and they were just the conduit. At the time I thought 'what a load of pretentious rubbish'.
Of course that is exactly what happened to me when I sat down to write my first novel Year of the Celt.
I did get to a point about half way through when I lost my way for a week or two. So I just started writing backwards from the end (not literally). That got my juices flowing again.
As the book is largely inspired by the landscape where I live, walking the dog over the moors would often suggest a scene or some detail to add (a sound or smell).
I did try setting up a spreadsheet to link things together but I found I was just recording what I'd done rather than finding it useful in planning anything.