Technicalities, Vol 3: Who are you? Why are you in my novel?

All of this is true. Well, not the dress. Or the hair.

Over at Published In A Year, "The East Coaster" wrote an entry about how she gets to know her characters. I of course chimed in with a comment and, being me, attempted to write a freakin' dissertation because my process is as weird as my obsession with Pikachu. Soooooo I decided to move my rear over to my own dang blog and sort my thoughts out.

I have always been a character author. This means that I come up with characters and their relationships to each other first, plot second. (Usually the plot is fleshed out by the characters...not the other way around.) First and foremost I am writing about how my characters get through the plot, not what actually happens and how it affects everyone else. I often write about saving the world/universe, but I write it from a very personal level. The entire world/universe may hang in the balance~, but you don't care about Earth surviving as much as you care about so-and-so finally confessing their love to so-and-so...while Earth crumbles in the background. How romantic!

So my novels and stories come from the characters that come to me. Usually when a story starts out for me, all of the main characters arrive at the same time. This includes the way they look, sound, and probably even who they like and don't like amongst the other characters. Very rarely have I come up with a secondary character of my own effort later who ended up being just as important as the initial main characters, although this has definitely happened.

How do I "get to know them"? Well, as I wrote in the comment on the other side of Blogger, my brain is always going. I'm never just NOT thinking about something. But of course there's only so much worry I can allot in one day, so all the other time my brain is in "novel mode". It's really kinda scary and ridiculous, but it's how it's been my entire conscience life so I don't know anything else. When I'm not thinking about the "real" world I'm thinking my novels. And I'm not even always necessarily thinking about plot or logistics (although that's definitely popping up from time to time). Usually I'm thinking about my characters and how they would react in the most mundane of situations.

(warning: incoming "wow, you're sad".)

Tonight after work I went to a local cafe on the way home to get dinner. As I sat there playing my DS (um, Pokemon, of course) and waiting for my food and...being hyper aware of the Creeper Man in the corner staring at me while his girlfriend slept in the seat beside him...my brain, for the most fleeting moment, imagined that two of my characters were in that cafe booth instead and mumbling about Creeper Man. In the span of five seconds these two characters had a dialogue in my brain of what I was thinking: "Ugh, that guy is so creepy, isn't he." "Yes, he's kinda weird. Why is he staring at us?" "Ugh so gross. I wonder which one of us he's staring at?" "Both of us. He's imagining us having sex." "He probably wouldn't if I didn't look like such a dyke." "Hell he's probably wishing he could get his girlfriend there to have a threesome." "Hey, by the way, next time your lesbian friends want to have an orgy, give me more than a two hour warning." "Where the hell did that come from?" "I'm just sayin'." "You're actually not saying anything."

And then my food arrived and all I could think was om nom nom nom.

But in the span of those few seconds I learned a lot about my characters. (Well, I actually knew most of that already about them, but you get my point.) Probably the most valuable thing I learned is that one of them needs a bigger advanced warning for orgies. Duly noted.

I've written before about how I talk to myself all the time to work out dialogue but this is different. This is just flat out pretending. The dialogue thing is done on purpose as part of my writing job. The sitting in a cafe and pretending that my characters are sharing my experience while I omnisciently mess with their feelings just happens naturally. I can't say if this is "normal" at all. But as I said before, it's how my brain has worked since I was about ten, so there.

What about you all? Do you just have a bunch of people living vicariously through you or do you take the more ~normal~ routes of writing up characters sheets and writing out scenes to get to know your characters?

(I'ma go to bed now and go to sleep while thinking up nonsensically boring and mundane scenes with my characters in them. Odds are they'll be trying to sleep too. Man, my life.)

Technicalities, Vol 2: Chronological Writing vs. Wait, That Doesn't Happen Yet!

This entry is just a snippet of a multi-part saga dealing with the technicalities behind writing. Posts and subsequent discussions focus on how we write.

First off, guess what, it'z mah birthday. Well, it is on this side of  the world anyway. Still a few hours left back in Amuhrrika. General praises of admiration for having made it this far without Darwinizing myself are always welcome. And presents. Or both.

[VULCAN JEDI MINDTRICKMELD] Do both. [/VJMTMM]

AHEM.

 
Today's discussion is about in what order we write scenes.  Simply put, do you write all of your scenes in order (whether from an outline or as naturally as it feels) or do you write whatever damn scene you feel like writing at the time?

I am a strict chronological writer. Everything I write must be written in order. I've always been this way, from my very early days of playing around with fan-fiction. I mean, in my head, writing scenes out of order just is not done! *pearl clutch* On one hand I can understand the argument of "well, if you're blocked on this scene, just work on one that you are inspired for!" but I can't let you do that StarFox do that, man. I FEEL YUCKY AND DIRTY OKAY.

There is one scene that I've written completely out of order. Back in 2008 when I was working on the first half of Rebirth (I started writing it around Nano 2007) I was outlining the series, and there was a scene I REALLY wanted to write for Regress, the then final book of a planned trilogy. So I wrote it. And damn was it a good scene.

That scene is still planned.. But I will have to rewrite it, because the characters' motives in that emotionally charged scene have completely changed. Actually, one of the characters has completely changed, in direction and origin. So while the same things happen, the feeling and tone of the whole scene is different.

(Also, technically, I started writing Revenge before I even finished the first complete draft of Rebirth. But you know, Nano.)

This is why I don't write out of order. I'll end up having to rewrite later scenes anyway because of things always changing in the scenes before them. Plus, finally getting to write those scenes I'm all geared up for is like a super awesome reward for trudging through those scenes I struggled to finish before.

I mostly made this the topic today because I'm really bitter about finishing the scene I'm on. Yeah, I don't wanna.

Technicalities, Vol 1: Outlining vs. Ripping Off Somebody's Trousers

This entry is just a snippet of a multi-part saga dealing with the technicalities behind writing. Posts and subsequent discussions focus on how we write.

YUP. Exactly what I think of.

It's the age-old question, especially during this time of year when Nano season is in full bloom.

"Are you an outliner, or are you a pantser?"

Now, if you're like me, you hear "pantser" and immediately think of that one snot in your middle school who would run around and rip people's pants down and go HAR HAR HAR UR UNDERWEAR LOL. (Oh, the years before that was considered sexual harassment. How I wish I was born later~) Of course "pantsing" refers to the saying of "flying by the seat of one's pants" but it still sounds stupid. So, for the sake of this post, we'll call pantsing "flying" to preserve this author's sanity.

Some people swear by outlining: they get the most satisfying work done by carefully constructing their entire novel via bullet point (including dates and times) that they will later flesh out in their word processor. Others find that when they "waste time" outlining they end up not using it at all and they fly through their story without knowing what's going to happen next. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages to both ways, and it all comes down to your own personal preferences and experiences - we authors know best that all our brains function differently and what works for one does not work for all. Thankfully, I've never seeing outlining wank before....but that would be interesting...and good way to spend a Sunday evening...quick somebody start some outlining wank!

I used to be a pretty hardcore flyer. I've always been the type that once I have an idea I just wanna sit my ass down at the keyboard and start typing, finding out about my characters as I go and letting them take me through the plot. As I got older and got more serious about making a career out of my writing - and, not to mention, focusing on extensive series where lots of crap happens - I started jotting down occasional notes that I wanted to remember for the future. And then I started outlining. But only a little.

I still am the type to just make stuff up as I go...but only little things, like dialogue banter, settings, sometimes who's in what scene and what order they fall in. The only thing I outline now are the Big Bad Plot Points, especially the climatic endings once I have them figured out because LOL I FORGOT. Sometimes for Nano I'll make a scene-by-scene outline just so I have something to continuously work on but I don't think I will this year.

My line of thinking is...if it was really a Brilliant Idea,then I'll remember it. And I still remember a lot of my OMG I MUST WRITE that ideas that I had a few years ago. I've never outlined the third novel of CROSS// but I know exactly how it will play out, all the way down to certain scenes. Of course, you could argue that I should still write down notes in cause I get like, thrown into a coma and get amnesia. But if I ever get amnesia that bad I think I'll have more things to worry about than my writing career.

So in short: outlines are for academic papers, yo. Writing fiction is about literary abandon and writing off the cuff, unless of course you're really afraid you'll forget that one thing. Well, you know, for me anyway.

What's it going to be, readers? Especially for this year's Nano?

Outlining or pantsing flying?