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

[laurabee.livejournal.com]

It's funny you mention it, because I've noticed a difference in how I write NaNo this year, and I'm getting a lot further this year. Before, I would jump around and write the interesting parts first. Then I would never go back and write the boring, but important to the plot, parts. This year, I'm just driving headlong through, writing through the boring parts as I come to them, and I'm the furthest along I've ever been on a NaNo story. The downside to this, especially if I get interrupted mid-way through a scene, is that I've lost the "feel" for the scene and it may turn out that there are noticable transitions in tone. I think that's just a writing discipline thing, separating how I feel from how the characters feel. Also, I'm refusing to edit this year, which helps, but I do have an outline in a separate document that says what next few major plot points are and what the characters' names are as I am so bad with names.

I think NaNo is about getting your words down on paper. I seriously considered being a novelist in high school and subscribed to Writer's Digest magazine and wrote a lot. Many of the articles I read said that getting in the habit of writing, and writing without too much inline editing, was the best way to become better at writing. Practice makes perfect and all that nonesense. I can't say I saw improvement in my writing from Jr. High to High School, but I was 14 years old, what did I know? What I find frustrating is reading an author I like, but they have some stylistic quirk I can't stand, and then finding myself doing it.