Do you write in your head?

[DarlingNikki]

I don't mean plotting out the story like, "hmm, I think they should end up on the boat, because then I can have them argue in a climactic scene and I can use an ocean metaphor, or maybe a storm metaphor..." I mean, "Susie clambered awkwardly up the rigging. She wished Joe would give her a hand instead of paying so much attention to his precious new hat." (or whatever)

If you do this - do you find that you lose the story once it's "written" in your head, so that when you sit down at the computer or the notebook you remember what you wanted to write about but not the great phrasing your mind came up with? Or do you think the "writing" was never as good as you imagined it when it was happening and you were really just fooling yourself that you lost something great?

Does that even make sense? All I know is that all the way home I couldn't wait to grab my journal and write a draft of an essay that I was thinking, but now I find that I can't remember it. This happens to me a lot.

 

[Belle_in_south]

I certainly write in my head. I entertain myself in the car, as I fall asleep, or when sitting in meetings that I don't want to pay attention to by developing my characters and plot. I may not come up with the exact phrasing, but I detail plot at that time. I just hate it when I have a great idea for the future of a story and have trouble bridging the gap to get to the scene.

 

[KillerMuffin]

No. I plot in my head. I write at my computer.

 

[RenzaJones]

yes. I tend to jot ideas down as I always have a notebook with me.

 

[gauchecritic]

I occasionally think up a really really good sentence to use, if I'm thinking about a story whilst driving or eating but on the whole it's fingers on the keyboard and the flow of the writing that brings out the actual structure and phrasing.

Gauche.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I play most of my stories through in my head, several times over, but I don't really write them till I sit down and start at the keyboard.

-Colly

 

[whispering_surrender]

I occasionally will wake up in the middle of the night with the whole thing, word for word, written in my head. I keep pen and paper by the bed for shorter ones, and have been known to stumble out to the computer for longer things. Wouldn't want to lose these precious little gems bound for the recylcing bin.

Whisper

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I have my characters acting out every scene inside my head. I get a lot of funny looks from others when I sit there moving my lips and frowning, sighing, smiling, grinning, pouting...

 

[oggbashan]

Sleep? What's that?

My characters wake me up in the middle of the night telling their stories. That works.

Great ideas for new stories also occur in waking moments. I scribble them down. Next day they are invariably crap.

While I am writing my characters are one or two paragraphs ahead which can be distracting if I'm typing about their romantic evening while they are actually in bed bonking. Sometimes I have to skip a few paragraphs to catch up with them then return later to fill in the missing bits.

My characters talk to me, criticise my writing, insist on changing the plot and are generally a pain in the butt. I love them.

Og

 

[Vincent E]

There isn't much right in my head.

Oh..you meant "write." That's different.

I may have a scene or a phrase that I want to put into a story. If it is a scene I try to building upon it once I have it written down by trying to figure out what lead to it and then figuring out where it went. If I have a phrase or some dialogue that I want to characters to use I'll also write that down and then take some time to figure out how the conversation grew and how it ended. I guess it is a lot like roughing out a sketch and then filling in the color and details later on.

Sometimes I just start writing from an initial concept and don't know where the story is going. It is as if the characters take over and run things. That would be related to my first sentence.

"No it isn't," he said.

"Yes it is," she replied.

"Hey," I interrupted, "will you guys cut it out. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousnad times, 'No fucking around with me on the message boards.'"

"Oh, quit your bitching, Vincent," they said in unison. "Besides, you misspelled thousand, dumbass."

Now do you people see what I have to put up with?

"And you can't end a sentence with a prepostion," he continued.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

If you do this - do you find that you lose the story once it's "written" in your head, so that when you sit down at the computer or the notebook you remember what you wanted to write about but not the great phrasing your mind came up with? Or do you think the "writing" was never as good as you imagined it when it was happening and you were really just fooling yourself that you lost something great?

The real work of writing is getting story out of your head and onto the paper. I'll walk around telling myself the story in my head, and it feels like I'm using exact language and phrasing, but I really think that just isn't so. It's really a mixture of ideas, images, emotions, and snatches of language. I only think that it's all language and ready for the paper. Turning all that stuff into concrete words is the hard part.

---dr.M.

 

[pop_54]

Ha

There isn't much right in my head.

Oh..you meant "write." That's different.

I may have a scene or a phrase that I want to put into a story. If it is a scene I try to building upon it once I have it written down by trying to figure out what lead to it and then figuring out where it went. If I have a phrase or some dialogue that I want to characters to use I'll also write that down and then take some time to figure out how the conversation grew and how it ended. I guess it is a lot like roughing out a sketch and then filling in the color and details later on.

Sometimes I just start writing from an initial concept and don't know where the story is going. It is as if the characters take over and run things. That would be related to my first sentence.

"No it isn't," he said.

"Yes it is," she replied.

"Hey," I interrupted, "will you guys cut it out. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousnad times, 'No fucking around with me on the message boards.'"

"Oh, quit your bitching, Vincent," they said in unison. "Besides, you misspelled thousand, dumbass."

Now do you people see what I have to put up with?

"And you can't end a sentence with a prepostion," he continued.

You can end a sentence with what ever you want Vince, you wrote the bloody thing, it's your copyright.

Yes I have sudden bursts of inspiration, usually when there's nothing I can do about writing it down. Then Lo and behold when I sit to write it, it's bloody well gone.

 

[Xelebes]

I think the words of the story in my head, like the dialog and everything similar in that respect. It also helps if you can literally think 500 words in your head every minute.

 

[Image]

Whole stories sometimes come to me in the hours between almost awake and awakening in the morning... but it's so frustrating because I lose the exact words and situations by the time I get to a pen and paper...

 

[Angusthe bull]

I listen to my characters in my head. I write it all down at the puter. I edit every time I open a file up. I once lost an entire story by wakening up and thinking "this is great, I am so damn confident I have this in my head," and going back to a mind wipeing sleep....

I mourn that story yet.

I do it one way, you another, and her another still, we all have our ways. Mine works for me only, or maybe you too? It's not hard and fast but I love it when I just have to be the scribe for the dialogue.

Wishing you free flowing words,

Angus

 

[whispering_surrender]

August, that was so well put.

Thank you. *smiles*

Whisper

 

[thebullet]

I do a lot of driving. This week for example I drove over 700 miles on three days out of five, going to customers way out in the boondocks. I write in my head on these trips. The trick is to remember what it is you wrote.

Unfortunately sometimes my best work is forgotten by the time I get to my workstation to get things down on disk.

I got so frustrated by that turn of events that I started taking a notepad with me as I drive. If I think of a particularly good plot concept or scene or even line, I'll jot it down in almost unintelligible scribbles, then try to figure out what the hell I was thinking of the next day.

Please note: this is not necessarily the safest way to drive.






Stories by thebullet

 

[raphy]

I really don't write it in my head. I don't plot in my head. I don't have characters in my head.

9 times out of 10, when I sit down to write a totally brand new story, I have NO idea what's going to come out of my fingers. I don't have character names, scenes, locations or plot.

I couldn't tell you where my stories come from. They write themselves. I just put the words down.


Don't ask me how it works.. But it definitely seems to.

 

[Seattle Zack]

A couple of years ago, I started carrying a little notebook with me, and now I'm rarely without it. As things come to me, I jot down random plot ideas, characters, overheard bits of dialogue, phrases. I also have a notebook by the bed where I write down ideas that I've had during the night before they can get away from me (although, in the light of day, some of it makes no sense at all).

I've had ideas and stuff sitting in traffic, for instance, and it's frustrating not being able to remember them later, especially when they seemed so good at the time.

I may not use the things I jot down fo rmonths, but writing it seems to keep it bubbling somewhere in that subconscious stew. When I reach an impasse in a story, I often pull out the notebook for inspiration. Sometimes even the most random thing can trigger something and get the story going again.

Just my method to this madness
--Zack

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

Mostly I plot in my head, but write at the keyboard.
Occasionally, I'll think out wording in my head.
The parodies, now, generally come when I'm away from
the keyboard.

 

[The_Fool]

Reading through the posts, I would say I am similar to those that say they plot in their head. But for me, writing a story is almost like writing a screenplay for a movie that I have created in my mind, usually quite elaborate in detail. I rarely work through the words until I sit down to write, although I do sometimes come up with some key phrases. Some I remember. Most I don’t.

Everything I have said so far relates to stories. Poetry is 180 degrees out. Many times a poem comes from a phrase I come up with. In other words, the words create the story rather than the image creates the words. For instance, Angeline and I had been trading posts on Blues, since we both share a love of them. Into my pea brain came the phrase “Angeline, Have you seen…” this rest is history, um, I mean posted. Anyway, losing those key phrases is much more of a loss for my poetry (depending on your outlook) than it is for my prose.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I hate it when characters talk back to me. I was writing this fan fic, and one of the characters were going on and on:

"No, I'm NOT going to go there and see what they're up to! It's a trap! I can smell it miles away! DO you really think that I'm stupid enough to fall for such an obvious set-up???"

And I replied: "Will you just shut up and get killed..?"

Not to mention the other character, who stubbornly refused to warn this other character about the attempt to kill the latter, just because the first character didn't LIKE the second one...

"Arrrrr... they're driving me nuts!"

 

[LeatherCandle]

Actually

I pretty much have to write the entire story out in my head before I can put it to paper or in this case, computer. If it's not written there first, I just get stuck when I try to write it here.

The only downfall with that is since it's written in my head, when I go to write it down for real I feel like it's already been down and get bored with it.

 

[Master Nerd]

Often when I get an idea for something to write, it isn't in words, but images, like a movie. The hard part comes when I try to translate the feel of what I've seen in my mind to words to put on paper (or the computer screen... whatever).

 

[DarlingNikki]

Thanks for the great replies. I need to mull this all over, but am exhausted at the moment...