Looks like this woman is cooking dinner, one of the daily chores many of us must do. What are you cooking in your writing life? Do you use recipes like cooks do or are you the kind of writer who starts with an idea and keeps typing until you finish the draft?
Some writers are so disciplined that they outline (their recipes) everything they write--be it a full novel, a chapter, a short story or an essay. They like the idea that the outline is there to be referred to as they move along in the story. Some might consider it a crutch while the writers who use it know it is a necessity in their writing life.
How about those writers who have an idea and start writing with no thought whatsoever as to where it will take them? Risky business? Those outline kind of writers would think so. More creative? The writer who lets the story take him/her to unknown places might agree.
When I started writing my middle school novel, I had nothing more than the thought that I'd like to write something based on my maternal grandfather's life. Grandpa was born in 1884 and when he was a mere nine years old, he was taken out of school and sent to work in the coal mines with the older male members of his family. He never returned to school.
I had the protagonist and I had the situation in the actual story of my grandfather but I wanted this boy to find a way to get out of the mine and back to school. Because I liked school and valued education all my life, it bothered me a lot that Grandpa never had the opportunity to complete his education.
To introduce the character, whom I named Will, I started chapter one with a fight in the schoolyard broken up by a teacher. It was great fun to set the scene and bring in a few characters besides Will. I had been a teacher and knew full well about playground fights and teachers stepping in to quell the situation.
I wanted to make the reader know that Will loved school and was a good student, so I ended the chapter with the teacher telling Will he had won an essay contest and would read his winning essay at the school festival in a couple months. Now what?
In the second chapter, I had Will walk home from school with his two best friends. He tells them about the contest win and they are all excited. He goes into the house where he lives with his grandmother, father and older brother. Excited to tell Gran the news, he blurts it out as soon as he gets inside the back door. It's then that his grandmother changes his life. He will be going into the mines the next day.
At that point, I had no idea how Will would get back to school but I started each chapter with a glimmer of a thought and the characters seemed to let me know where they wanted to go, what they would say and do. It was Will's story and he pulled me right along with him all the way to the end. Strange as it may sound, Will and his friend, Emily, took up residence in my home. My friendly ghosts in the corner! They stayed until the first draft was completed and I no longer felt their presence.
I could never have written the story using an outline because I could not have made one. I had no idea at the beginning who all the characters would be or what they would do. I had enough understanding of what life in a small coal-mining town was like because my mother had grown up in one and told many a story at our dinner table.
I also didn't know when I wrote the first chapter that a gypsy would play a big part in the story and many other things that eventually found their way into the tale.
I like this method of writing because I think it gives the writer more freedom. Yes, outlines can be changed but often a writer who uses them feels they need to stay with the outline, at least for the first draft. That said, there is no right way or wrong way in how you write a story. The best way is the one that makes you comfortable. If your friends in your writing group all do it one way and you do it another, don't feel one bit guilty. We're all different and we use various methods to achieve our goals.
No comments:
Post a Comment