Unplanned

I am horrible at making plans for whatever I am writing.  Some people can have complete outlines before they even begin.  They know everything their character is going to say and do.  I suppose this is especially helpful when writing mystery or crime fiction where you need to spread clues throughout the story without being obvious about them.

If this outlining is a requirement for the genre, I may never be able to write mystery or crime fiction.

I never know where my story is going to go.  The closest I have ever come is knowing what I wanted as an end scene, which was eventually moved to somewhere in the middle of my story. 

In fact, when starting a new story, I never know if it’s even going to last.  I’m usually not sure until I’ve hit page 20 whether I have enough substance for something good, or if I’ve just got an idea that can be inserted in another story.  I worked a week on my latest piece before I realised that I had the wrong protagonist and was focussing on the wrong time of the story; the action was more interesting a year after the arrest that was taking place instead of during.

I rarely move pieces around and I don’t write something that will fall into place in 50 pages.

I don’t make character outlines before starting, and I don’t cut out pictures of characters that have yet to appear.

I don’t have a checklist (very rare occurrence in my life) of scenes and actions that must take place.

I discover the story as I am writing it, quite similarly to the way a reader discovers it as they are reading.  It might mean a lot more revision on my part, and I might be complicating my life, but so far this is how I work.  So far, this is what works, and I’m not willing to mess with it anytime soon.