Friday, November 16, 2007

Planner or Discoverer?

I read an interesting post in one of the forums on the nano site the other day, from a fantasy author answering questions that people put to him, and in amongst many other gems of information was the idea of planners and discoverers. I hadn't heard of this concept before, and I think it made me feel better about the way in which I write.
Basically there are the people who plan and plan and plan, know all the ins and outs of their story from the beginning who end up with a complete thing - consistent, organize, and not needing too much editing. And there are discoverers who have an idea and begin, they don't do a lot of planning but they just jump into the story, learning about the characters and the situation, the world it takes place in as they write - whew, there we go, thats me! lol while I try and do some planning, I find it a much more interesting process finding things out as I go along... its a joy discovering things about my characters, my world, my story as I go. I think for some reason it gives me the same kind of excitement that reading a book does - you are never quite sure what is going to happen around the corner, while you may know some of the things that are bound to happen in the wider scope. Discoverers he also mentioned tend to have to do more edits and rewrites, as the characters/story that they begun with can develop in ways different to how they may have initially been written at the beginning of the novel, I so hear that, lol I SO have to do that!!! It might be a long drawn out process, but atleast it's fun for me.
He mentioned that most people fall in between these two extremes, and thats bound to be true, there are as many ways to write a novel as there are people who write novels.
Also, I sent the first 10K to my reader in Wellington and he is loving it. 'I'm hooked, wheres my next 10K?' he asks... lol after the weekend, after the weekend.
I was meant to have a massive writing day today seeing as its normally the day which my little one is at childcare all day, but shes home sick with a vomiting bug - not a lot of fun for either of us, and not likely to be productive in many ways. I am still intent on getting to 20K by the end of the weekend, and then I am going to have to push on pretty hard in order to get to 50K by the end of the month. It can be done though, slow and steady... I know I can do it. Not at all worried about the story know as I know everything I need will be made clear in the process. Lovely to have faith in your characters like that.
Hope everyone elses writing is going well! Have been feeling absent from forums and boards lately, I think I'm still recovering from exams, attempting to renew and replenish myself. I am sure that soon I will feel like I have the energy to participate more widely once again.

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