a question for writers

[cellio]

This question is directed toward two groups: people who have completed fiction works, and people doing NaNoWriMo (national novel-writing month).

How do you structure your writing? Do you write your story linearly from beginning to end (not counting editing passes)? Or do you jump around, leaving place-holders for things you'll fill in later?

My impression, based on only a few data points, is that people doing NaNoWriMo tend to start at the beginning and write the story in order. (NaNoWriMo is all about cranking out the initial draft in a short period of time, so editing is discouraged.) I write fiction rarely and as a hobby only, but I've found that I tend to jump around somewhat -- I may start out writing linearly, but then I'll insert something like "[wild night in bar goes here]" so I can write the next part, because I'm not feeling inspired to write about wild nights right now but I do have inspiration for the aftermath. Do people who write fiction more seriously do that, or am I just quirky?

I find myself wondering whether NaNoWriMo builds productive habits, encourages destructive habits, or is just plain orthogonal to conventional writing.

Comments

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

I'm a NoNoWriMo person...

I'm writing beginning to end...there are a couple of times I've cut something short...I haven't left any written note, but it's definitely in my mind that I want to finish/insert in the editing process.

The one thing that's clearer to me this year is that this effort won't end up on November 30th as something I'll be proud to pass around. There will be a whole pile of editing to do if I get finished, because there are chunks that need to be deleted, things that need to be fleshed out or re-arranged...

Maybe the way I'd describe it is I'm writing linearly from now until the end of the month, but there's some jumping back that will probably happen post-first-draft.

But, who knows, I've never yet been successful (or even close to finishing), so who knows?