Calculated Spontaneity

We are all familiar with the two styles of writing: Outlining and discovery writing.  Outlining is really any organized manner of plotting and writing a story.  Discovery, on the other hand, is simply writing at its most visceral and creative.  These are polar opposites, as are the writers who promote them.

Writers rarely fall under one or the other category, however.  It is less outlining vs. discovery and more outlining-discovery.  A sort of continuum, as Brandon Sanderson puts it.  Each writer fits somewhere up and down that scale.  Some part outlining, some part discovery.  It is the rare writer who is a purist.  Most of us are hybrids.

Oddly though, the ways of mixing discovery and outlining are not discussed very often.  So, how does a writer blend these polar opposites?  How does a writer dynamically switch from one mode to the other?

A purist outliner will quite nearly detail every last nod and sigh.  With footnotes.  But we’re going to take a step back from that.  Create a scene-by-scene breakdown.  Answer things like: Where is the scene?  Who is in the scene?  What are the scene’s aimpoints or goals, if any?  Purists would go much, much farther.  But we’re going to stop right here.  That’s it.  Write the scene.  Keep your aimpoints in mind.  Keep your plot and character details in mind.  If you've done research, keep those facts in check.  Then just write the scene.  Let it flow naturally.  Visualize it and write it.  If you are visualizing faster than you can write, do not pause.  If you get hung up on a piece of the scene, push past it.  Leave a little note in brackets to remind you of the part left unfinished.  Keep going.

Once you reach the end of the scene, check how you did.  Did you meet your aimpoints or goals?  Did you keep your facts in check?  Did the scene “progress” in the right direction?  As the saying goes, the joy is in the journey.  How you achieve a scene’s objectives is more important than the objectives themselves.  This journey is the part you can discovery write.

Discovery writers might be feeling a serious buzz kill, right now.  But you don't have to do scene-by-scene.  Simply create the over-arching aimpoints for the entire story.  Where do your characters start?  Where do your characters end?  What was their journey?  Where does it take place?  What is the conflict?  What is the resolution?  How did it affect your characters?  Then let loose.  You are free to dream.  Unleash all your creativity upon the story, unrestrained and unbound.  Yet, directed.  Occasionally, stop and examine your work.  Make sure you are on track.  See that your story is aimed properly.  Don't focus on any particular scene.  The general direction of the story is what's important.

It is all about visualizing the story.  If you need more structure to visualize, do more outlining, research and character detailing.  If these get in your way, junk them.  Some of us need preparation and guidance.  Some of us only need a blank page and a dream.

Let's talk about dreams next time in: Dreaming of Elsewhere

The Three Monkeys of World Building

You have a blank page in front of you.  This is either the point when: You can freeze up and try to think of something you’d rather be doing, like binge watching House or “researching” every anime article ever published on Wikipedia.  Or you can begin documenting an entire universe, created completely out of the fertile imagination of your all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing mind.  Are you still prevaricating?  Read no further and here's a link you should totally check out.  Ready to create?  Read on.

Sky Moles!

If you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, there is literally a universe waiting to be created.  You will spend countless hours carefully crafting every detail.  Races?  Magic systems?  Technology?  Political intrigues?  Character backstories?  World history?  Oh, yea, you've got it down to the last whisker on that weird sky mole you invented.  Now, this beautiful world is just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.  You begin writing your novel, weaving every possible detail and revealing every little tidbit.  Right down to the last whisker ...

Or not.

Going granular with the details might feel satisfying at the time.  Launching into long info-dump monologues might answer a lot of really interesting questions.  But the reader is going to hate you for it.  The secret to awesome world building is not in what you tell, it is in how you tell it.  Moderation is key.  Answering who, what, where and why is absolutely critical for every author.  You, the writer, have to know.  Your readers don't.  The trick for world building within a story is in what not to reveal.

Here are three ideas I've called the Three Monkeys of World Building:

See no ...  Focus the reader.  Clap those hairy monkey hands over their eyes.  Only give small glimpses of your world.  You choose when, where and how the reader sees it.  Never explain the whole world.  Maintain the mystery, the mystique.  There is something incredibly powerful about the secret, the hidden and the unknown.  Know but don't show.  Your knowledge of your own world informs your storytelling.  And the reader only needs the story.

Hear no ...  Muffle the monologues.  Readers.  Do.  Not.  Want.  To.  Listen.  To.  That.  Much.  Info.  Enough said.

Speak no ...  Gag the preacher.  Some authors try to control the reader's responses to their story.  They try to tell the reader what they should be thinking and feeling.  Allegory is essentially the "control freak" version of this.  As Tolkien famously stated: "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."  Are you using a dystopian future to preach about NSA wiretaps?  Are you using steampunk to preach about racial intolerance?  Are you using your supernatural monsters to push back at gun control?  Just remember, people don't like being preached at.  Even when they completely agree with you.

So, you've created a world.  You've answered all the big questions.  Now, gently and cleverly reveal your world to, well, the world.  Just remember to tell a story.  A really, really good story.  Speaking of which, what makes a story "good"?  Let's look at this next in: The Greatest Story Never Told