Maybe you travel with a road map, or maybe you like to wander a bit and see where it takes you.

“I never outline new projects, so that’s the first thing to say. I sort of feel like structure is something you discover rather than superimpose and my idea there is that superimposition makes the writing process secondary to the drafting process, if you will, the sort of blueprint process.  And I don’t want to have to sit at the keyboard and act like a slave to some outline.  I think that that makes the work structurally manipulative in a way.  I can’t learn things about the characters.  I can’t discover aspects of them I didn’t know about earlier on if this character absolutely has to go to the shopping mall and pull out a submachine gun.  You know? If I’ve already decided that’s the case, there’s nothing in the process that’s magical or surprising to me and I don’t want to be in that position.” — Rick Moody, Big Think, July 28, 2010

When you write, do you need to know what happens next? Or do you write to surprise yourself?  Share your thoughts  in the comment section.

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