Starting something and it morphs

akbowens · Nov 19, 2011

I'm finding that I'll begin with a certain idea of what I'm going to write for a scene and the original idea of what I planned morphs somewhat. For instance, a character in my story had to report to someone, have his say and exit the scene. Instead I ended up writing the scene with the character being stripped of his command and sent away to be flogged and imprisoned. A twist that will add to the story I think.

Is it common for original intent to morph for a writer in this way?

mirandashell · Nov 19, 2011

Yep. Especially if you're a seat of the pants writer. Happens a lot.

Tepelus · Nov 19, 2011

Happens to me all the time.

Archerbird · Nov 19, 2011

Same here.

VictoriaWrites · Nov 19, 2011

It's okay. One of my poor characters was supposed to go to the market, get yelled at, but otherwise return unscathed. She ended up getting arrested for disturbing the peace and put in a jail cell with a magical creature that's not supposed to exist.

akbowens · Nov 19, 2011

mirandashell said:
Yep. Especially if you're a seat of the pants writer. Happens a lot.

I'm not. Everything is plotted out so far. Loving Scrivener for this.

akbowens · Nov 19, 2011

VictoriaWrites said:
It's okay. One of my poor characters was supposed to go to the market, get yelled at, but otherwise return unscathed. She ended up getting arrested for disturbing the peace and put in a jail cell with a magical creature that's not supposed to exist.

Haha. How much volume did that add to your writing?

VictoriaWrites · Nov 19, 2011

akbowens said:
Haha. How much volume did that add to your writing?

I'll get back to you when I'm done with the subplot spawned by blue-haired immortals banned from their own realm...

AutumnWrite · Nov 19, 2011

Guess I'm the seat of your pants type, and frankly, I enjoy the detours.

SRHowen · Nov 19, 2011

I never know where my characters are going or what sort of trouble they will get into. That's what I love about writing the most, the adventure.

Domino Derval · Nov 19, 2011

Normally I fight the Putty Patrol for a few minutes until Rita Repulsa sends reinforcements, and only then do I morph.

jeffo20 · Nov 20, 2011

I surprise my self on a regular basis when I write. At times, it's a conscious thought - "Hey! Wouldn't it be better if...?" Other times, things just seem to happen happen on their own, and I wonder where the heck that came from. Either way, I just go with the flow and trust it to make the story better. If it doesn't, out it goes.

Architectus · Nov 20, 2011

I often get ideas while writing a scene. I recently completely changed the first scene of my novel three times. Sucks to throw the old out because I worked so hard on it, but it just wasn't working well enough.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 20, 2011

I'd be extremely worried about quality if such detours didn't happen.

dangerousbill · Nov 20, 2011

akbowens said:
Is it common for original intent to morph for a writer in this way?

It not only happens, I depend on it. When a story goes as I planned it, it's because my characters have refused to come to life.

Bushrat · Nov 20, 2011

dangerousbill said:
When a story goes as I planned it, it's because my characters have refused to come to life.

I guess that's what it's all about. No matter how much thought I give to my characters before I start writing, I don't really "feel" them until a few scenes down the road - and then yes, a lot of times they're doing something different in the scenes than what I had planned.
One charcter all of a sudden turned out to be gay; that was a bit of a surprise ...

The Lonely One · Nov 20, 2011

mirandashell said:
Yep. Especially if you're a seat of the pants writer. Happens a lot.

I am. And I've never written something that turned out exactly as I first envisioned it.

vintagegirl · Nov 20, 2011

Yes. All the time. I don't feel I know my characters until I've written them, so a lot of the time they end up being slightly different from what I intended and as such my story doesn't always end up the way I planned it. Every time a story has morphed for me, it's always ended up being the better for it.

flarue · Nov 20, 2011

Yep, that happens to me from time-to-time. Sometimes it's helpful, and other times it annoys me.

Domino Derval said:
Normally I fight the Putty Patrol for a few minutes until Rita Repulsa sends reinforcements, and only then do I morph.

That's awesome.

Silver-Midnight · Nov 20, 2011

The morphing things happens to me all of the time. Personally, I think it happens even if you plot your story out. That's probably why I feel about plotting the way I do. Haha.

But yes, it is common, and it happens more than you think. Someone told me that it's your brain correcting it or making it better. I don't know how true that is. But I find a lot of my "second ideas" are than my first.

jcavelos · Nov 21, 2011

Morphing Scenes

This is common for many writers. The problem is that many writers, once they finish the draft, don't go back and reevaluate the story. Obviously they haven't written the story they planned (if they had a plan). That's fine.

Chances are that you've written pieces of several different stories that are all mashed together. So now you have to figure out which of those stories you want to tell, and what the beginning, middle, and end of that story are. You may have to throw out much of the initial draft, because it simply allowed you to discover the story that you really want to tell. But now that you know that, you can write a piece that is focused and unified.

Hope this helps.

Best,

Jeanne

Jeanne Cavelos
Director
Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust
www.odysseyworkshop.org

LadyDae · Nov 21, 2011

Always. I want the characters to do one thing and then they do something else or they want something else to happen in the story that I didn't at all plan. It's frustrating, but sometimes the characters know best... Lol.

NeuroFizz · Nov 21, 2011

Evolving stories and morphing characters are not limited to seat-of-the-pants writers. And it's nothing magical about the characters having a life of their own. It's the creative mind at work. It's our imagination, our what-if thought processes allowed to freewheel. I'm not an outliner, although I've written out of some tough spots by writing a general outline, and in each case, the deviations, detours, and morphing crept in. This is the really enjoyable part of writing--when something changes direction seemingly without pre-thought or any kind of planning. And it can give us some of our most creative moments in story construction. But it can also give us some of the most frustrating dead-ends. Creativity isn't always kind to us, but it is extremely rewarding when it is.

SRHowen · Nov 21, 2011

Jamesaritchie said:
I'd be extremely worried about quality if such detours didn't happen.

Exactly, when those don't happen the writing feels forced and sucks, for me anyway.

SRHowen · Nov 21, 2011

NeuroFizz said:
Evolving stories and morphing characters are not limited to seat-of-the-pants writers. And it's nothing magical about the characters having a life of their own. It's the creative mind at work. It's our imagination, our what-if thought processes allowed to freewheel. I'm not an outliner, although I've written out of some tough spots by writing a general outline, and in each case, the deviations, detours, and morphing crept in. This is the really enjoyable part of writing--when something changes direction seemingly without pre-thought or any kind of planning. And it can give us some of our most creative moments in story construction. But it can also give us some of the most frustrating dead-ends. Creativity doesn't isn't always kind to us, but it is extremely rewarding when it is.

BIG +1

Starting something and it morphs

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