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

[geekosaur]

Every so often writers (most of the ones I've seen are SF authors, but I'm sure other genres are represented) talk about what it takes to write against deadlines like this --- only one I can think of off the top of my head is Niven, about writing a story on demand at a con. It's rather different from normal writing.

(I'm currently recalling someone's short story about a writing contest vaguely like NaNoWriMo but converted to a spectator sport --- Google is failing to find it for me, though. In particular I'm recalling one point where many of the spectators are cheering for "their" contestant: "Culp, Culp, Crank That Pulp!")