At the beginning of this week, I decided to put my Script Frenzy project to rest. I’m working a lot of overtime these days and I think it’s best not to burn myself out trying to meet my page count. Priorities, you know? I have, however, learned a few things from this adventure. They all tie up to one subject – how I write.
First, I’m an outliner. I need my plan. I need the story to have spent a little time in my head to order itself into a series of post-it notes before I begin writing it. My Script Frenzy story was a bit too much ‘figure it out as I go’; it slowed me down and leaves me unsatisfied of the result.
So there, no more pantsing for me.
I’m unable to keep pushing forward in a story if I know a major problem exists in the previous chapters. It doesn’t work for me to keep going as if I rewrote the chapter and make the change when I edit. I need to rewrite it now (at least the biggest chunk of it). I’ve got a variety of reasons why I do that. I should explore it in a blog post sometime, but not today.
Basically, without a plan, I end up going back to change stuff as I figure out the story.
My brain works with a “first burst, simmer, plan, write” process. The first burst is an unplanned moment of creativity that marks the birth of the story. It usually ends up being chapter one. It’s my Script Frenzy project’s teaser, my NaNoWriMo novel’s chapter one and the inception of Killing Time OST. At that point, I have no clue what the story’s about but the first burst reveals the characters and the voice.
Then the project simmers in my brain for a while as I figure out what led that burst to happen and how it should go from there.
I outline it.
I write it.
It’s my cycle and when I don’t do that, my story eventually falls short of my expectations.
In the end, despite the fact that I have to give it up in order to protect my sanity, Script Frenzy taught me quite a bit about myself. It also provided a nice change of pace from my usual novel writing. Now I’m doubly motivated to go back to my main projects, polish them and start queries as soon as possible. 😉
The Writeaholic's Blog 
April 22nd, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Hi Aheila, I too find I struggle to write without a plan, I start off great with a burst of enthusiasm and ‘see what happens’, then I start to think what should be happening next? I stutter, falter, half write something not very detailed, then fail altogether when I’ve no idea what happens next!
I too found ScriptFrenzy teaches me a lot, and Nanowrimo too. When I take part, I learn so much more about myself and writing, in a short month, than I do the whole rest of the year. The wonderful thing they get me to do? Write, almost every day, and think of my story constantly. I love them! 🙂
April 30th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Hi Sketching Girl!
I haven’t forgotten about the interview, by the way!
Your struggle seems to be the opposite of mine: I can always figure out what comes next but sometimes it does work with what I set up before. I know that ‘next’ is right and that the ‘before’ needs editing and it drives me nuts.
I agree that both challenges teach us a lot about ourselves. Now that I’m re-reading my NaNo novel, I realize that once I stop thinking so much about what I’m writing (because I’m pushing to write as fast as possible) I come up with some of my best scenes.
May 3rd, 2011 at 9:39 am
I think there is a great advantage with Nano and ScriptFrenzy pushing us to write as fast as possible, it makes you carry on writing. I re-read part of my Nano novel a while back, and was shocked that what I wrote was pretty good! When you have no deadline, I think you can fuss too much over every word and phrase, but we really should leave that to the re-write, and just enjoy the crazy excited writing that pours out of us as we spontaneously think it up! 🙂
Thanks for not forgetting about the interview! I have also been busy just lately, there seem to have been a million and one family get togethers just lately! Then I had fun celebrating the Royal Wedding, I just loved that! I might even be inspired to write a Royal short story! Funny how different things can give you inspiration!