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Do you know how your story will end before you start writing?

I know the entire story before I even START to write it. Beginning to end. Otherwise I don't start. I have three stories I started to write with only a basic premise for the story. They are all in my WIP file and have been there since I started them 12 yrs ago. They weren't ready to come out, but I tried to force them. Then got sidetracked, then lost, then frustrated and finally gave up.

If you want to write something really worthwhile, think it through. ALL the way through. And KNOW what you are going to write before you start.

On the other hand if you are looking to write Letters to Penthouse type stuff, all you need to do is think up 50 vulgar, ridiculous, descriptions like, "I slapped my rock hard 16" Donkey Schlong on her jello mold ass and plowed into her glistening meat grinder." Then string them together in an equally absurd setting like Walmart and you'll get 5 stars all day long.
 
My I said:
If you want to write something really worthwhile, think it through. ALL the way through. And KNOW what you are going to write before you start.
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No. That's an absolutist statement which simply does not fly.

Some of my best work (as measured here by reader and writer feedback in all its various forms) started with no idea of a finish. Indeed, probably my most powerful piece here hinged on an idea I had half way through writing it, which popped into my head between the first sentence of a paragraph and the last. If that serendipitous moment had not occurred, the piece would be nothing compared to what it is.

So no, I don't agree with this statement at all. The muse works in mysterious ways, and sometimes the start of something good is a single phrase or image. What you do with it is up to the individual writer and their style.
 
electricblue66 said:
No. That's an absolutist statement which simply does not fly.

Some of my best work (as measured here by reader and writer feedback in all its various forms) started with no idea of a finish. Indeed, probably my most powerful piece here hinged on an idea I had half way through writing it, which popped into my head between the first sentence of a paragraph and the last. If that serendipitous moment had not occurred, the piece would be nothing compared to what it is.

So no, I don't agree with this statement at all. The muse works in mysterious ways, and sometimes the start of something good is a single phrase or image. What you do with it is up to the individual writer and their style.
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This.

By far my most successful story here was completely unplanned.
 
This thread, like many about writing, can be summarised as:

"Whatever works for you is good. Other authors may have different ways of working. How the story is written is unimportant. What matters is the result."

We can share tips on technique and things that have worked for us. Whenever we say 'This is the only way' or 'This is the best way' then we are WRONG.

What can be useful are author's accounts of the way they approach writing personally. The way you write now might not be the best for you, and thinking about how others do it can be useful. Trying a different way, even if it doesn't work, is a useful exercise in building a tool kit that improves your own technique.

So, please - give your opinions but appreciate that others may work differently.
 
oggbashan said:
This thread, like many about writing, can be summarised as:

"Whatever works for you is good. Other authors may have different ways of working. How the story is written is unimportant. What matters is the result."

We can share tips on technique and things that have worked for us. Whenever we say 'This is the only way' or 'This is the best way' then we are WRONG.

What can be useful are author's accounts of the way they approach writing personally. The way you write now might not be the best for you, and thinking about how others do it can be useful. Trying a different way, even if it doesn't work, is a useful exercise in building a tool kit that improves your own technique.

So, please - give your opinions but appreciate that others may work differently.
Click to expand...

+ 100 - ogg nailed it.
Now we return to our regular programming.
 
My I said:
I know the entire story before I even START to write it. Beginning to end. Otherwise I don't start. I have three stories I started to write with only a basic premise for the story. They are all in my WIP file and have been there since I started them 12 yrs ago. They weren't ready to come out, but I tried to force them. Then got sidetracked, then lost, then frustrated and finally gave up.

If you want to write something really worthwhile, think it through. ALL the way through. And KNOW what you are going to write before you start.

On the other hand if you are looking to write Letters to Penthouse type stuff, all you need to do is think up 50 vulgar, ridiculous, descriptions like, "I slapped my rock hard 16" Donkey Schlong on her jello mold ass and plowed into her glistening meat grinder." Then string them together in an equally absurd setting like Walmart and you'll get 5 stars all day long.
Click to expand...


As others said, if that works for you, then great, but it doesn't work for "everyone". Also, your comments are about writing erotica, which isn't the genre "everyone" writes.
 
KindofHere said:
I approach writing the same way I approach women: With a knife.

No, wait, that's all wrong.

I approach women the way I do writing: With no plan and a lot of dirty thoughts.

That's not right either.

Fuck.

I'll get back to this thread later.


Edit:


Go on....
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ChloeTzang said:
Chloe draws her SR9 and does the trigger thing.
"BANG"
"Never bring a knife to a gunfight. Next story please."
Click to expand...

And that is how you collaborate effectively on a story. :D
 
KindofHere said:
Chloe, your talent for description leaves me in awe, and normally they just carry pepper spray. I guess I don't know how to approach today's modern woman.
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That's funny. I have a tee shirt somewhere that says "I'm not a pepper spray kind of girl." With a big bad gun on it. Lol.

fd4e6f53d735f4bc0780b64dc0d2e03e.jpg


How to approach today's modern woman? Hmmm, not with a knife unless your in the kitchen cooking. I have to think on that one. Last time I got approached successfully was by my partner when we met at TaeKwonDo and I was kicking the dust off him. "Harder ... harder" he cried.
"That's my line," I said, dissolving into giggles.

I'm not sure how many women that one would work on though.
 
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Denny

Yes because I was there as it happened and I wrote the notes so I could remember the details for when I wote the actual story.

Since most notes are from years ago when I didn't use much profanity or sexual detail, I've rewritten many stories the way many Literotica perverts like to imagine them.

They are still real life events with four letter words added. I still don't have a 16" donkey dick and never met a man that had one.
 
KindofHere said:
I got it. It's Backpage for me. Wait, or maybe I'll get a little classy with it and try Craigslist. You know, fuck it, Match: I want to go on a date where I have to wear clean clothes and the only thing I'm paying for is dinner.
Click to expand...

Hey - increase the odds in your favor!!!! Go with the numbers
Chinese Dating - Six Hundred Million Chances to Find The Girl of Your Dreams!

And wow, they're so persuasive. I'm almost convinced, except, oh no, that's my competition.....:eek:
 
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For me it depends on the definition of what 'start writing' is.

No, I don't know how it's going to end the first time I start thinking about a new story. For me, that's the start of the writing process. When I first put type on the screen for the outline, I've been thinking about it for several days, and I've got a general idea for how it's going to end, but it might change as I work through the outline/treatment/synopsis.

By the time I actually start typing on the story proper, yes I know the exact way it's going to end. Subject to last minute change if inspiration hits.
 
Depends. Some of my pieces had been outlined and planned, some were built around one or more core scenes and some were totally free-form. Most of my "Ghost in the Machine" series just happened, only the last four chapters got a little planning. So happy no one has found the glaring time and continuity errors yet. Need to edit the hell out of it should I ever plan on making "Ghost..."a commercial e-book

The build-up and pacing of both "Tear's Desire" and "More than Video Games" required an outline and I'm happy I managed not to go off-script in either one.
 
By definition, an endless series has no end. One may (but is not obliged to) proceed from cliffhanger to planned cliffhanger, tease to tantalizing tease, frustration to flimsy frustration, fuck to holy fuck. Into what brick wall will this chapter crash? Doesn't matter -- the dilemma is finessed away for the next chapter. To end the series, blow up the planet or city or whatever.
 
In so far as my genre proper is erotic romance and therefore a HEA is expected or at least a HFN, yes.

But otherwise, not really. I have broad strokes, sure, and I try to achieve them, but I often find I don't like the original goal or it writes itself into something else.

I really let the characters do their own thing whether I'm writing short smut in a fever or working on 200pp novel. Mostly because when I try to force them in ways that aren't organic to how they're developing, it doesn't work.

I recently needed one of my characters in a novel to be cranky and have an argument with another. However, she was very bored and horny instead and kept hitting on him, and I bemoaned that she was confounding me because she just kept on with it. I couldn't seem to stop writing her as doing that, so I just gave up and let her do what she wanted to do in that moment.

It sounds odd, but I let them take on their own life because it's the easiest way for me to make them feel authentic. If they aren't telling me what they do next, it's because I don't know them yet. If I let the characters tell me, then I don't always know. I always need to be prepared that my original idea might kind of suck.

My SO looks at me sometimes when I outline a plot too far ahead of time and just goes, "Yeah, that sounds a little ... convoluted." And he's usually not wrong there.
 
nadinejulie said:
It sounds odd, but I let them take on their own life because it's the easiest way for me to make them feel authentic. If they aren't telling me what they do next, it's because I don't know them yet. If I let the characters tell me, then I don't always know. I always need to be prepared that my original idea might kind of suck.
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This.

My best material comes from exactly those moments when the characters come alive and starting writing themselves. That's the point when any pre-conceived plot goes out the window.

It's like the characters gang up and start saying,"we're in this story dammit, not you. You're just the writer. Get on and do your job - we'll decide what to do, your job is to write us doing it."
 
electricblue66 said:
This.

My best material comes from exactly those moments when the characters come alive and starting writing themselves. That's the point when any pre-conceived plot goes out the window.

It's like the characters gang up and start saying,"we're in this story dammit, not you. You're just the writer. Get on and do your job - we'll decide what to do, your job is to write us doing it."
Click to expand...

Yes. These two posts say exactly what I want to say, but better than I can say it.
 
Usually

Though sometimes the characters take over and the ending is a little different to how I had intended.

With some stories I have the end already laid out, and I build the rest of the story up to that point.

Goes Like an Otter is one such story.
 
As an exercise (as much as anything else) I wrote what I thought would be the last line of my most recent story first. It's just a short story - slightly fewer than two thousand words. But in the course of crafting those two thousand words, one of two ideas came up. And my 'last line' became my penultimate paragraph. Close enough? I think so. :)
 
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