Styles
It’s been an intensely busy couple of weeks. My friends Stephen and Janice were in from Australia, and this week my friend Sam Butler (look for Sam’s book REIFFEN’S CHOICE and then buy it) came out from New York to visit and attend our local science fiction convention Bubonicon. Yes, you read that right. Not a typo. We really do have a con named after the Bubonic plague. Because New Mexico is the Land of the Flea, Home of the Plague. And Hanta Virus. If we come down with a respitory illness any place else in the world we’re supposed to impress upon the attending physician that we are from New Mexico and to check us for Hanta. But I digress.
Sam sat in on a meeting of Critical Mass and was impressed with the quality of critique being offered but said the group would never work for him because his writing style is to just write down everything about the characters, a situation etc., and in essence “find the story.” George indicated to me that he writes the same way, feeling his way into and through a story, allowing the hind brain to guide him.
Then there is Daniel, Ian and me. We intensely plot a book before we ever write the opening line. We may break out beats of a scene in a chapter. I did that when I choreographed the big fight sequence at the end of ON THE EDGE. For me it’s like picking up and setting in place a scene brick that will ultimately build the entire structure. This doesn’t mean that I don’t throw out scenes or add scenes or alter the sequence of chapters or scenes, but I can’t write if I don’t have everything pretty well laid out.
I would think that the advantage to the “find it” technique is that it remains very fresh, almost surprising because you are discovering what happens next along with your characters. On the down side you would have to be prepared to have written a lot of pages that ultimately don’t fit in the book or advance the story.
My technique might keep me from exploring some really cool side path that might ultimately dovetail back into the main story, and would make the book stronger. The advantage is that I don’t end up with wasted pages.
All of this set me to wondering if people with differing styles can collaborate or if you’re better off with a writer who shares your sensibilities. Ian and I work very well together. I somehow think I couldn’t write with Sam or George. I think we’d drive each other crazy.
Melinda
August 28th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Then there are those of us that use the “vomit your stream of consciousness rants onto the page” style of writing.
But I’m having Daniel help me learn the “actually plot out what is supposed to happen” style.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I’ve tried everything from Just Writing (not a good idea with historical fiction) to detailed outlines and lineraly following them which only got me stuck, to a vague outline and writing out of order. In a way, history is my outline whereupon to hang the personal conflicts of the characters.
So I keep writing scenes and will try to sort them and knit them together in the end. That way, my characters can still surprise me, but since I have some idea where to go, I won’t let them do stuff I can’t use in the novel. Mostly. There’s this scene I knew from the beginning I could not use, but I still wrote it to get it out of my system.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Nah, I think you and I could collaborate. I’d thrive on your structuring and you’d revel in my hindbrain.
August 31st, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Uh… you DID write with George… at least on screenplays. Remember WILD CARDS, THE MOVIE? PRINCESS OF MARS?
Screenplays are different than books, though.
September 1st, 2007 at 11:15 am
Duh. Yes, of course I wrote with you, but we had books as a template for both those projects, and I don’t thing I was as wedded to my style back then as I am now.