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.
Host Jose Miranda and Haydee Ayala keep the discussion lively every Saturday from noon to 1:00 PM on Yo Soy Latino, 810 WEUS AM, a magazine-format call-in talk show covering politics, the arts, food, fashion, and more.
This week Jose introduced the Scribbler’s Corner with Darlyn Finch. Featuring news and chat of interest to writers, this new segment will be heard on the show the second Saturday of every month. Great news for local writers! Thank you to Jose and Darlyn for creating a space where local writers to be heard.
For the kickoff, Darlyn invited me to join in the conversation, and it was a lot of fun, and we were particularly pleased that some of you called in! But if you missed it, you can listen to the show here. Scribbler’s Corner starts about 20 minutes in.
I’m a Gleek. I admit it. So why am I confessing this here? Because there are “enduring lessons to be drawn for writers from Glee:
1. Make stories represent the diversity and sub-diversity of human life.
2. Do not be afraid to mix modes: comedy and drama; music and satire; social commentary and escapism.
3. Cast your stories as you would a movie. Highlight the characters who have the most at stake.
4. Establish a predictable pattern, then shake things up.
5. Take a predictable genre, then blow it up.
6. Find within any group you write about the needy, the ugly, the despised, the misunderstood, the excluded and the lost. Then find out what they think about you.
7. Trust the audience to suspend disbelief. They know the kids didn’t choreograph that dance in 13 seconds and that three-piece band can’t sound like a full orchestra. Just go with it.”
via Poynter Online – Writing Tools
Mary Ann de Stefano
