Hello. My name is Michael Myers and I am a . . . bit perplexed. With Ari’s indulgence, I thought to open a discussion about how we write. Not a crit circle, but rather a discussion about how a story’s words get from brain to paper. How we each individually approach the process. Perhaps there’s something worth learning there. Or not.
By way of example, here’s a string of words that my keyboard captured. My eyes were closed while I allowed myself to enter into the scene, chasing tendrils. Pausing, observing fast-moving mental images, recording, but never stopping to read back and edit. Misspellings and all:
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drew his gun loaded a bullet toe to the door should he need a swift opening silencer dorr jamb for a steady rest two men nearby scriffy and hungry but just shuffled on she sat in front and they to the rear sharing a brown paper bag the contents of and whiping heri lips with a dirty sleep
Then in his plain compact sedan, driving away into the the fog of the night.
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The last line came after I’d captured the blob, a coda with the spin needed to fit a larger subtext.
Thoughts, anyone? Crickets?
Again note that is NOT A CRIT CIRCLE kind of thing. I have been assured that Ari will see to that.
When you wrote this, was it like you were...translating mental images as quick as you could into something roughly verbal? I get the sense, from you saying you "entered the scene", that the scene is something in your head with pictures and motion -- and the stream of consciousness indicates it moves quickly? Is that right?
It seems so different from how I would construct something
Like...I don't know, it's hard to describe, but the writing of something is in itself the way of imagining the scene or story -- in words first, then pictures if I can manage it, or with the two simultaneously building on each other, but always the verbal thing is foremost. Sometimes there isn't a clear picture of everything, anyway -- people are imagined, often, as faceless shapes. (If I recall correctly. Truth be told, it's been a while since I've written anything...)
For example, if I were to close my eyes and type, without going back to fix anything or edit...this is a story I've been trying to outline, without a huge amount of success... But let's say I make some snap decisions right now for the sake of exercise
...
It was an insufferably bright afternoon, the market in full noxiousness; the charlatans on their platforms screeching and tossing remedies out as fast as the hollrs and coins were hurled towards them. Durvy's platform was two inches higher than everyone else's -- she'd made sure of it with a ruler, and overnight now and then she'd hammer more bits of wood or stone or sometimes dead birds to the top of it to stay that way. "Durvy's famous fecal translplants" would always be the biggest and brightest sign in that shithole of a district, no pun intended, even if she had to sell steal the nails.
...
At this point, I'm thinking, yeah, this isn't really right -- in terms of wording, in terms of voice, and also in terms of where to start, probably, and also what the hell kind of name is Durvy...
But wow my spelling is about as good as it is when my eyes are open?
Anyway. The point is, though, that I'm not working so much from a visualization, if that makes sense -- I'm trying to build a scene made of words, for myself, after which might come the images... is it the other way around for you?
(If I had the freedom, that little writing sample there wouldn't have gotten that far
Much more doing would have gone into word choice and sentence construction -- because, I guess, the "building" of the thing depends so much on the words, and I immediately wanted to start revising as soon as I typed the first phrase.)
Re: what others have said about constructing the story itself -- sitting down and thinking for a long time, etc -- I try to do this, too. I find, though -- and this is probably why I am also bad at Rubik's cubes, programming games, chess, and complex puzzles -- my brain is only willing to extend "step a leads to step b which leads to step c and d which leads to step e, f, h, i, and eventually g" so far before it just ... can't follow its own thought anymore? I find that I'm often outlining only the first part of something before I get stuck, write, then get to the end of that part, get stuck again, outline the next bit and then realize I also need to change the first part I just wrote, redo the outline, rewrite the first part, and so on forever.
It's...quite annoying.