Prewriting

misswriter · Oct 9, 2006

How much do you usually do?
For my current novel I have a notebook I'm filling up with ideas, character bios, outlines, notes, facts, et cetera, but it's just a new idea I'm testing out.

jbal · Oct 9, 2006

I did that for my first book- basically a whole 70 page single subject notebook of outlines, character details etc. For the WIP, nothing whatsoever. I finally broke down and made a list of who the POV chararacters were for each chapter because I kept having to go back and check what order they went in. But other than that, nothing.

TwentyFour · Oct 9, 2006

I did that too, Miss...but I used something even better for character descriptions...I used the MS Spreadsheet to make a diagram of the characters and how they look, dress, eye color, hair color, height...so on.

It made it easier to be on one page and open the document for simple use.

veinglory · Oct 9, 2006

In my case, none. I think it through and then I start to write chapter 1.

sanctuary6284 · Oct 9, 2006

I draw, outline, research, and summarize. Still doing this unfortunately. Haven't gotten the writing flowing.

icerose · Oct 9, 2006

It depends on the story. Sometimes I have it all figured out from beginning to end so I summarize it all and fill in the gaps and write it. Othertimes I have very little and start writing then halfway through the rest comes and I summarize then finished. Sometimes I never get any look ahead and I just write.

Be careful though, sometimes too much prewriting can prevent you from actually writing. There is a point when you need to put pen to paper and actually write.

Scruffy Scribe · Oct 9, 2006

misswriter said:
I have a notebook I'm filling up with ideas, character bios, outlines, notes, facts, et cetera.

This is how I do it, I like to have a pretty good outline so I know where I'm going. I personally think it makes for better writing (atleast for me), and cuts back on the loose ends and stroy flaws in my writing.

Plus I have a horriable memory, and if its not outlined somewhere I'm likely to start mixing up my facts and character traits.

K_Woods · Oct 9, 2006

I don't typically prewrite. I subscribe to the "seat of my pants" method of writing, though I do a lot of thinking-out beforehand.

That said, one of the projects I've got kicking around sort of has been prewritten...as a 120,000 word monster of a self-and-others-insertion science fantasy story written eight years ago, at the tender age of fifteen...wait, that'd be almost nine years ago. Fortunately for all parties involved, this never circulated beyond an audience of about six, and given the absence of any results on Google it looks like they've kept it that way.

Needless to say, most of it is unusuable. (Those bits with Mel Brooks? Or Terry Kath? Or clones of a certain PBS talking dinosaur? COMPLETELY unusable, and let us never speak of it again.) But there were salvageable elements, including the idea that made me go back and take another look at it, after all these years.

I could've done a lot worse, I suppose.

KTC · Oct 9, 2006

I'm not intelligent enough to work like that. I just start at the first word. Then I write the second word. Then I write the third word. Sooner or later I get to 45,000 words. Then 50,000, etc. I have tried writing things down. It never worked for me. It seemed to actually hinder the creative worm that crawls around in my brain. I just write. I learned long ago not to mess with the process that works for me. Outlines are like train wrecks for me.

Cath · Oct 9, 2006

I'm scared of pre-writing. I'm scared that I'll grow sick of the characters before I even start writing the story.

KTC · Oct 9, 2006

That's a good point, Cath. I like them to come to me as they come to the story...open up to me as I write about them.

Gwenzilla · Oct 9, 2006

I spend a lot of time prewriting. I love character sketches, investigating places, that kind of thing. I find that the more I detail the characters before I begin, the more natural and real they seem to sound, right from the beginning. I don't get tired of them: I just keep learning new things about them!

icerose · Oct 9, 2006

Moral of the story, if it works for you, it's good, if it doesn't work for you, it's bad.

Do what works for you and your story. It most likely will not work exactly the same way for others but that isn't important, the important thing is that it works for you.

PeeDee · Oct 9, 2006

I vary all over the place. When I used to do serials, I could fill up notebooks of notes on all sorts of things (rarely were they organized character bios or anything). Mostly, it was something for my hand to do while my brain figured things out.

For my short stories in the past five years or so, as well as my novel I just finished, I didn't write any notes in particular, maybe just a one-line jot here and there.

For my current projects -- the comic book and the novel -- I've written an outline for the comic and I'm writing a great many maundering notes for the novel just because it's such a huge project with so much research involved.

Stew21 · Oct 10, 2006

i don't pre-write. I tried that once. But when I started writing, my characters did what they wanted to do, not what I had thought they would want to do (once I got to know them, and all). They took over, I scrapped every single note I had, and wrote the story how they wanted it written.
Since then, the story starts with the first word and we get to learn (me and the characters) what happens at the time the words hit the screen/page. Pre-writing takes me out of the story instead of emersing me in it, and I'm afraid it would do the same to a reader. Not to mention, I'd lose all momentum if I pre-wrote. Takes the fun out of the discovery of writing.

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 10, 2006

I have never prewrote, prewritten, done that pre-writing thing. I write my novel on the fly and don't even outline. There'd be nothing to pre-write since I don't have a story until I actually start to write.

IrishScribbler · Oct 10, 2006

For my WIP I had to do prewriting because it started as my senior thesis. However, I'm continuing it because it keeps me on track, and it helps me have something productive I can work on when I'm frustrated with a scene or chapter or character. For example, I got frustrated with how some dialogue was going, so I worked on rounding out a different character in the character bio, then incorporating those traits back into the piece.

Anthony Ravenscroft · Oct 10, 2006

Speaking as an old fogey, I'd guess that what you call "prewriting" is what used to be called writing.

I didn't really have the luxury of sitting in front of the typewriter for many hours a day. Get home from work, make dinner, wash dishes, have a little time with the wife, then get ready for bed because sunrise always comes early. If I wanted to sit up & write for an hour, it certainly wasn't going to be on the machine, or I'd likely cost my wife sleep (& likely the people upstairs as well).

So I'd write. If a dialogue was especially vivid in my mind, I'd jot that down. If a descriptive panorama opened up before me, I'd write it down. It didn't matter where I was in my WIP; seems kindly foolish to think, "Oh, I'll remember it later when I need it."

Right now, I'm working on a novel, a nonfiction, & five shorts. What "order" are they supposed to be in?

I don't write to see the story unfold in front of me. I already have a pretty good idea of the story I want to tell or the subject I want to teach. (Few teachers say "Let's just review arithmetic & see if we end up at calculus, which is what you signed up for.") My experience is that few people are capable of telling a long joke without remembering they left out some important root fact of the premise -- I can imagine what their novels would look like if they tried to write linearly.

karo.ambrose · Oct 10, 2006

i did an outline for my trilogy, but not in the normal sense. i literally sketched out everything and did a ton of watercolor paintings of the scenery, characters, and events. while i was in college, bored out of my mind in class, i would do tons of doodles which i would later convert into paintings. btw... does anyone else get their best ideas when they're bored out of their minds like in class or in some formal event you hate being at?

JohnnyV13 · Oct 13, 2006

I think I did WAY too much pre writing for the novel I recently finished. I had character sketches down to even very minor characters (including Myers-Briggs personality types. Yeah, I know they may be little more than psuedo-science, but they are useful characterization "thumbnails".)

I did a lot of theoretical stuff about the behavioral underpinnings of warfare and why different government systems work. Then I did lots of history of my world and evolutionay stuff about my elves and dwarves.

I developed large quantities of material that never even received a whisper in my finished book. I sometimes wonder if I did all that background to avoid having to actually write.

Button · Oct 13, 2006

I write notes out the wazoo but I have yet to follow them. For some reason transfering idea sketches from paper to the actual words turns out not to work too well.

The main charachaters usually stay the same, but they go in odd directions. I just write in all the scenes I can think of to get to the end, even if later I know I'll be taking stuff out.

Ad Astra · Oct 13, 2006

Alas, I haven't the patience or time to prewrite. If I ever get anything pre-story down on paper, it's usually just a notebook page of random scribbles and maybe one character bio.

M.A.Gardener · Oct 14, 2006

I don't "pre-write" for shorts, but I do for longer works. For my WIP, I created timelines of the main characters because I refer to parents, grandparents, locations and events in their lives. I couldn't have kept track of all that in my head! Halfway through the book, I did a sketch of the MC's apartment because I got to a certain point and I realized he couldn't possibly have room to keep his wheelchair in a 1-bedroom! Then one of my readers asked me what someone looked like, and I realized I didn't know. That made me write a list of what my characters wore, their hait color, etc. Moral of the story? "Pre-writing" helps at any time in the process for me

sanctuary6284 · Oct 14, 2006

M.A.Gardener said:
"Pre-writing" helps at any time in the process for me

Yeah. It's not really pre-writing. More like constant notation and brainstorming. I write and re-think and write and re-think. It's a vicious cycle but I face it down bravely.

But I have finally found some tips that are helping me work through the monster I have created. I can make sense of it all. Thank you Holly Lisle.

Patricia Lieb · Oct 19, 2006

A story usually starts swelling in my head and once I start writing it is hard for me to stop. I outline as I write the story and am constantly scribbling hand-written notes about what will happen. Then I'll type these notes at the bottom page of my working outline--I may or may not include the notes when I get to the place in the story where I though I'd use them. I let the story flow, but I fine a brief outline as I go keeps me from losing my place. I can look back to see what happened when, if an event took place during the day or night, how many days have gone by in my story, various information about the characters, and what-have-you. I use a different color of type for each character. So when I look at the outline I know whose story I'm looking at.

Prewriting

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