Do you write chronologically?

No skipping around for me, thanks. The last time I tried that, I got tangled up in the plotline and fell face first against a writer's block. I'm not going there again.

I used to never skip around for some reason, but lately I've realized that if I've got a scene on my mind, I'd better just write it because then I can't focus on what I'm trying to. So yeah I am not chronological; also female as you may have gathered from my username.

Depends entirely on the story. I've done short stories more chronologically than novels, although my current novel WIP is working more chronologically than previous ones did.

Since nobody's every likely to see any of them, I'm not sure how much good advice this is.

caw

Heavens no.
I write from beginning to end, with zillions of delete-rewrite-lines in between.

Novels from start to finish.

Screenplays sometimes I jump around but usually start to finish.

I'm an A to B to C kind of guy.

I write chronologically
mostly.

I know what all the scenes are going to be
very early in the process
so sometimes I'll skip ahead to work on something that's going to happen later,
or go back to work on something that happened before that I didn't do right the first time.

But mostly I prefer to ride the character right through the story because that way I see how she grows and changes,
a lot of which is a surprise to me when it happens.

Diana Gabladon, however, writes chunks all over the place.
Not a chronological writer

Well, I'm a girl, and I really don't write chronologically. I'll usually write scenes in dribs and drabs, all over the place, a paragraph here, a line of dialogue there. When I was in school, I would write the first draft of an essay as a series of vignettes, and then look at what I had and start throwing out the parts that didn't fit and developing the ones that did. Teachers would often be aghast at my work habits and they let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I was Doing it Wrong. I've tried on several occasions to be more conventional, but all my efforts at linear first drafts have met with total failure. It's like I have this nagging bit of logic in my head that always says, but how will I know where I'm going if I haven't gotten there yet?

JoNightshade said:

I don't mean that their stories are not chronological... what I mean is that in the process of writing, they might start out writing a scene in the middle, then a scene at the beginning, then at the end, etc.

However, I've never actually met anyone who claimed to do this.

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*raises hand* Now you have! And I must plead with everyone here to never start writing non-chronologically. It's a terrible habit, and one I've finally begun to break.

I didn't always write like that, though. When I began writing, I scribbled my stories on paper, then moved on to an electric typewriter. Either way, the use of paper gave me no incentive to skip around. Skipping around would mean losing my place, and likely having to eventually retype a lot of pages. It was best to just soldier on with whatever scene or chapter was giving me difficulty.

And then? Sometime around 1994, my family got a computer, and soon after that I became an Internet junkie. My attention span plummeted. My writing philosophy became "if it's too hard, or if it takes too long, skip it!" This can work in moderation. Just tonight, I stared at the last page of Chapter 5 in my novel for a good 15 minutes, tried a few sentences, deleted them, stared some more... and finally realized that if I was going to write more than 50 words for the day, it was best to just move on to the beginning of Chapter 6. So I did. 500 words done. But I didn't dare move on to Chapter 7, or 8, or 18. Not anymore.

The worst thing I did, back in my unstuck-in-time writing days, was jump back and forth even within one scene. I'd write the first sentence of a scene, then the last sentence, then try to connect the two with an appropriate middle. Didn't work very well. I got to the point where I rarely even had a complete sentence in my manuscripts -- I'd start a thought, realize I didn't know where it was going, truncate it before the period, and move on to another. You can rack up a word count this way, but not a story.

When I realized I was writing forum posts, Livejournal entries, and emails this way (because it's so easy to start with "Regards" or "Talk to you later!"), I knew I had to buckle down and start writing things in order again. I've spent almost a year working on this, and it's finally beginning to feel more natural for me.

In fact, I think I'll go fill in that hole at the end of Chapter 5 before I head to bed tonight.

Always beginning to end. I'm confused enough most of the time without purposely making it worse!

I can't even imagine skipping around. I'm way too anal for that kind of fluidity.

I sometimes skip around. I'm still experimenting, trying to find what works best for me. Usually I'll write in order unless there's a scene coming up that I really want to write now, in which case I hit enter a few times to give myself some room, and write the scene with //// as a header. Then I splice it in once I reach the appropriate spot.

I don't think I've really used the same method for any two stories though.

Mostly chronologically, but I keep a different file for lines or scenes that I want to come later, in case I think of something and don't want to forget it.

But when I write a scene with lots of dialogue, I usually write out the conversation and then go back to the beginning and add all the action that is going on at the same time or the character's unpoken thoughts/impressions. If that makes any sense.

Oh, and female, BTW.

I too, write chronologically. If I have a thought for later, it becomes a note for insert at the bottom of my WIP and delete each note as it's entered.

I don't know about you guys, but I dream my writing chronologically and have to get up and write what I just dreamed. I can't wake up enough to make a note to myself because I'll go back to the scene in my mind and it won't leave me alone until I get it down on the computer, which also means I could be up writing furiously for 3 hours. Then the next morning, I'm wasted but back on the computer in the afternoon fired up and ready to go!

Nope

RLB said:

But when I write a scene with lots of dialogue, I usually write out the conversation and then go back to the beginning and add all the action that is going on at the same time or the character's unpoken thoughts/impressions. If that makes any sense.

Oh, and female, BTW.

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Same here. I write the story chronologically but my first draft is really bare bones: dialogue, major action scenes, maybe a brief description if it occurs to me in the heat of the moment... Then I go back and flesh it out on the second draft.

(I think of it a bit like movie production, where they edit the filmed footage together before doing the heavy CGI work, redubbing fuzzy dialogue, etc. Watch the deleted scenes from "Galaxy Quest" (e.g. partially rendered CGI rock monster) and you'll see what I mean!)

On the other hand, if I have multiple points-of-view, I might skip ahead in my outline to the next PoV scene for that character, rather than try and switch characters mid-flow. But next writing session I will aim to go back and fill in, so I don't get too far ahead of the game.

My roommate, who is a girl, does this. She writes the scenes out of order, then works to integrate them.

I can occassionally jump ahead and write a scene, especially if it's fresh in my mind and I don't want to lose it. If I try writing out of order though, I end up with a beginning and an end, and I lose interest in the middle.

I do sometimes jump to the more inspiring chapters (the mental "book" usually leads the real one by half a dozen chapters or so), then back to the boring ones.

That's a male thing, though. Aren't men supposed to be more chaotic?

The more chronic I get, the less logical it becomes.

I have to write chronologically.
If I don't, I'll just write the fun parts and put the rest off indefinitely.

Just the opinion of a guy:
I write short stories from start to finish, but on my first novel I already started out of synch. I started writing the opening scene when I realized the real opening was something else, so I already wrote out of order from the very start.

Mdlle. Nancy said:

I used to never skip around for some reason, but lately I've realized that if I've got a scene on my mind, I'd better just write it because then I can't focus on what I'm trying to.

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Might as well just say "Same here". I like to ride the peaks of inspiration. It enhances the overall quality of the entire work, if each scene is written when it feels right. I don’t have an logarithm for when I write sequentially and when I don’t. It depends on whatever strange blueprint I have laid out in my mind at that moment.

And I am a female.

I find if I try to jump around I get all mixed up as to what has happened to who, when, where, etc... The most jumping around I do is occasional detailed notes on scenes to come, I'm a beginning to end kinda girl I guess.

jmindigo said:

I find if I try to jump around I get all mixed up as to what has happened to who, when, where, etc... The most jumping around I do is occasional detailed notes on scenes to come, I'm a beginning to end kinda girl I guess.

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That's when outlines are particularly useful. It's much easier to skip around if you got things planned in more detail.