My brain makes bizarre connections sometimes. Just a couple of days ago I put together a book shelf that I bought unassembled—just writing “book shelf” makes me smile happily. Book shelves, books… Oh, my God—happiness.
But anyway, I put the thing together. Depending on the manufacturer, this process can be anything from an hour long chore to an “OMG, did they write these directions on Mars?” kind of torture session. A chore—that was my experience. But while putting my new book shelf *smile* together, I started thinking about writing with or without an outline. This is where the bizarre connection comes in. I’ve always been a “pantser” but I’m beginning to rethink that, and here’s why…
In my younger days, I’d have put that book shelf together with either no, or a quick, glance at the directions. I mean, really, how complicated could it be? It’s a square or a rectangle. We all know what a book shelf looks like. Usually, I’d get all the pieces in the right places, but one would be backwards or upside down, and I’d end up with an unfinished surface facing outward or something. Really? Dip shit. So apart it would all come, and I’d redo it. No big deal, other than it took longer than it should have.
But a book?
Winging it with a book is often exhilarating because you don’t know where you’re going. It’s fun, nerve-wracking, enlightening. It also means, at least for me, that a lot of the time all the unfinished surfaces are facing outward—and well, shit, that doesn’t work. Redo. Rewrite.
When I say unfinished surfaces, I mean backstory, character development, foreshadowing, plot devices. I’m working all of those out as I’m writing, which is a legitimate way of doing things, and a lot of writers do it that way, but that means that my first drafts are heavy, heavy, heavy with narrative. I end up with a story I just “told” almost all the way through. Plus, I might realize midway that the bad guy is really a good guy or visa versa. So I’ll have to start yelling out stage direction—“Okay, everybody switch positions!” (Wow, that just brought up a happy image—but I digress… )
Telling—bad, showing—good. I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. I don’t know about anybody else who does it this way, but usually I start getting sick of my story. I’m kinda done. I want to move on. I have other people in my head yammering at me to get a move on and tell their story. Their usually exciting and compelling story that’s sitting in a corner waiting for me to take apart the book shelf and put it back together again the right way.
This time I think I might try to get all of the front end stuff done in the—Oh, I don’t know—the front end of the writing process. Just for a change. Just to see how I like it.
After all—if it ain’t an adventure, it ain’t any fun! 🙂
