{"id":10670,"date":"2023-10-19T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10670"},"modified":"2023-10-18T18:36:07","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T22:36:07","slug":"how-do-i-write-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10670","title":{"rendered":"How Do I Write? Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"woman<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But if pantser authors don\u2019t know where they\u2019re going (i.e., where the story will end up) how do they get there? I use before-the-fact and after-the-fact techniques to manage this process. Before I know whether I\u2019ll need them or not, I drop in potential clues early on (and make a note of them in the unanswered questions list). It can be anything potentially, but not certainly, important. Then I just keep going. In the early pages of Architect of Courage<\/a><\/em>, the first murder victim has long vertical scars on her wrists, evidence of a serious suicide attempt. I didn\u2019t know whether that would make sense or not as I got to know her better, but hundreds of pages later, it fit the evolving story meaningfully. I credit my subconscious mind for working that one out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the fact, when I find a story has worked out a particular way, I may realize that I haven\u2019t laid sufficient ground work. I haven\u2019t described the characters or situation in a way that makes the conclusion, as they\u2019ve said since Aristotle, \u201cboth surprising and inevitable.\u201d At that point, I have to go back and find the best places to weave in the necessary missing bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plotters too sometimes find the story escapes the structure they\u2019ve built for it. At the Book Festival where I gave this presentation last weekend, my colleague Jeff Markowitz<\/a> and I had a long conversation with an author who says she\u2019s a confirmed plotter. She told us she\u2019d been writing a story in which the main character was an injured soldier. All planned out. Very neat. One day she burst out of her office yelling, \u201cThe nurses have taken over the story!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this discussion about plotting versus pantsing reflects a basic difference not as much in how<\/em> people write, but why<\/em>. Plotters have a particular story in mind for their novel and are working to produce the best vehicles for that story. For me, the joy in writing is the joy of discovery. I like to discover what happened, how the pieces fit, in much the same way a reader will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This takes me back to my opening point from yesterday\u2019s post: what do I want people to get out of my novel? I\u2019ve come to believe, as a lot of other writers before me have, that when I write \u201cThe End\u201d at the close of a story, it isn\u2019t truly the end. It\u2019s the beginning. The story will come to its full potential and fruition when readers\u2014working as my unseen collaborators\u2014read it, add to it their own experiences and world views, and find elements there that are meaningful or entertaining for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 1 of How Do I Write?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But if pantser authors don\u2019t know where they\u2019re going (i.e., where the story will end up) how do they get there? I use before-the-fact and after-the-fact techniques to manage this process. Before I know whether I\u2019ll need them or not, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Different writing styles work for different people. But maybe they say less about how we write, and more about why.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,174,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2M6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10671,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10670\/revisions\/10671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}