Writing non-linearly

[TheRedChamber]

I'm currently writing a fairly involved historical story and I'm trying an experiment.

See, it's a very talky piece. Not always, but a lot of the key scenes involve just two people talking, with the talking being the heart of the scene. I've got fuck-polite-society deathbed rants,two cuckolds sharing a drink or twelve (yeah its LW), longwinded cries for help in a confessional, and long courtly discourses that run for two pages and amount to a highly encrpyted version of 'I'd be totally down to fuck'.

I've found the best stories are the ones where you get momentum early on and (for the moment at least, touch wood) I have it.

One thing I'm try to do to keep that momentum up is for these certain talky scenes to just write the dialogue (In the form A: Hello, Bob - B: Hi there Alan). I can worry about when character take a sip of ale, or when they tug their braid or slow their horse to look at a pretty flower later. I'm finding this is working well because:

a) I'm getting shit done. A lot of longer scenes that would take me two writing sessions are only taking me one. And doing it in one is making everything easier because I get a rythmn.
b) I'm able to focus on the words. As a historical piece, I'm having to put extra thought into how my phrasing (Am I writing "I love you, my lord." or "My lord, it is you that I love." or "Forsooth, my lord, I have for you a deep compassion, nay, a honest woman might even go so far as to call it..." - usually somewhere between the first and second)
c) I've been accused of overwriting inner voices before. Although I'm thinking about what characters are thinking, ultimately I'm focusing on what they end up saying. I can go back later and decide how much of and how I want to reveal that inner voice.
d) My piece is close third. However, using this approach I'm able to (or rather less distracted from) giving each of my characters equal weighting in the conversation. I'm no longer seeing everything from my MCs point of view.

Downsides?

a) I'm probably giving myself a lot of boring donkey work later. Noticably, I'm rushing to write each new scene's dialogue at each session rather than go back and fill in the linking material whenever I sit down to writer.
b) Will the prose I eventually produce be as good as or in the same style as my usual writing.

I'm interested in knowing if anyone else has tried this approach or other ways of non-linear writing. I know some writers write scenes out of order (I'm also doing that at the moment, my character is dying bemoaning life choices he hasn't actually made yet) and especially I know a lot of writers like to write the ending first (or midway). Anyone ever tried anything more advanced - for example, I've seen one writing guide recommend writing a story as one sentence for each chapter, then expanding each sentance into a paragraph, and then expanding each sentence in that paragraph into its own paragraph etc.

 

[NotWise]

I've done similar things.

The risk for me would be that I'd put the events in the characters words and find that they wouldn't do that/say that/go down that path. What I've done is concentrate on the dialogue and leave the action as a synopsis. I like writing dialogue.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Not me. I start, proceed, stop.

I have a rolling edit technique that I use constantly, but most of what you see in the final copy was there in the first raw draft. I'm a stream of consciousness writer, and characters can arrive within the length of a paragraph and muscle into the story. My job is to keep up.

I'm lucky, I think, to be able to write like that, and from previous threads on this topic, it's not common. There are writers like me, but we make a small table.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I almost never write chronologically, and when I do I go back and do edits pretty much constantly. Nothing is ever in stone until it's ready to publish. I jump all over the place when I write, not an ADD thing every couple of minutes, but from scene to scene according to which one inspires me first and then next and where that leads the ideas and so on.

You can also weave concepts all through the story very easily. Get a cool idea towards the end? Go back earlier and see if it works to introduce/foreshadow it, or even hint at it at various points so that it becomes a tie-in at the end and even more powerful. That way you can make the reader think "oh that's what the rope burns were all about!"

I'll go one better than you: not just rapid fire sentences and/or dialogue but heaps of tons of loads of point form even. I don't worry about the icing all that much when I'm baking the cake. Point form is good for building good solid cake rather quickly. You can type point form almost as quickly as you think it. Full prose, not even close.

I'm probably giving myself a lot of boring donkey work later.

Donkey work is temporary. The story is forever. If you're a writer, the work is part of the job. Embrace it, touch it, love it, roll in it. That's what separates you from all the plebes who say "I have a great idea for a story, someone else should write it!"

 

[ronde]

I tend to write chronologically, but then, I have an ending planned so it's the easiest way for me to write.

If you're really writing dialogue as you state with just a name, a dash and the words without quotation marks, many readers will get confused. Quotation marks have been the standard for denoting dialogue since sometime in the 16th century and quotation marks are what most readers learned in school. I don't understand how you gain anything by changing that convention.

Also, I think you're missing out on some opportunities by writing the dialogue first and then coming back to fill in the details. Readers "hear" dialogue based upon either a characters normal personality or upon the mood of the character when the dialogue is being spoken. If you aren't able to match the mood with some wording describing that mood, your dialogue may not read like you intended.

For example, use simple sentence, "You're looking really hot today". Is the character speaking truthfully, or making fun of another character? It's easy for a reader to understand if you set the mood prior to the dialogue, and that mood is probably what you're hearing when you write that dialogue. See the two examples below.

Tim chuckled at June because she obviously had a hangover.

"You're looking really hot today."

Tim smiled at June because of the dress she was wearing.

"You're looking really hot today."

My concern with writing the dialogue first is being able to find the mood again and conveying that to the reader.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've done this. This method works much better for plotters like me than for pantsers like EB. I have a pretty good map in my mind of the whole story as I start, and at some point before I'm far along I'll usually write the ending. Then if while writing I think of a particular scene that interests me I may jump to it and write that, and then go back to the story from where I left off.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I'm currently writing a fairly involved historical story and I'm trying an experiment.

See, it's a very talky piece. Not always, but a lot of the key scenes involve just two people talking, with the talking being the heart of the scene. I've got fuck-polite-society deathbed rants,two cuckolds sharing a drink or twelve (yeah its LW), longwinded cries for help in a confessional, and long courtly discourses that run for two pages and amount to a highly encrpyted version of 'I'd be totally down to fuck'.

I've found the best stories are the ones where you get momentum early on and (for the moment at least, touch wood) I have it.

One thing I'm try to do to keep that momentum up is for these certain talky scenes to just write the dialogue (In the form A: Hello, Bob - B: Hi there Alan). I can worry about when character take a sip of ale, or when they tug their braid or slow their horse to look at a pretty flower later. I'm finding this is working well because:

a) I'm getting shit done. A lot of longer scenes that would take me two writing sessions are only taking me one. And doing it in one is making everything easier because I get a rythmn.
b) I'm able to focus on the words. As a historical piece, I'm having to put extra thought into how my phrasing (Am I writing "I love you, my lord." or "My lord, it is you that I love." or "Forsooth, my lord, I have for you a deep compassion, nay, a honest woman might even go so far as to call it..." - usually somewhere between the first and second)
c) I've been accused of overwriting inner voices before. Although I'm thinking about what characters are thinking, ultimately I'm focusing on what they end up saying. I can go back later and decide how much of and how I want to reveal that inner voice.
d) My piece is close third. However, using this approach I'm able to (or rather less distracted from) giving each of my characters equal weighting in the conversation. I'm no longer seeing everything from my MCs point of view.

Downsides?

a) I'm probably giving myself a lot of boring donkey work later. Noticably, I'm rushing to write each new scene's dialogue at each session rather than go back and fill in the linking material whenever I sit down to writer.
b) Will the prose I eventually produce be as good as or in the same style as my usual writing.

I'm interested in knowing if anyone else has tried this approach or other ways of non-linear writing. I know some writers write scenes out of order (I'm also doing that at the moment, my character is dying bemoaning life choices he hasn't actually made yet) and especially I know a lot of writers like to write the ending first (or midway). Anyone ever tried anything more advanced - for example, I've seen one writing guide recommend writing a story as one sentence for each chapter, then expanding each sentance into a paragraph, and then expanding each sentence in that paragraph into its own paragraph etc.

I often have some sort of idea about the general type of ending I want. I have found a few times recently that I have got stuck on the middle. What helped was to go and write the end and then backtrack to connect this to what I had already written.

I also often have work in progress stories studded with square brackets:

[expand on this]

[but how does X know about Y?]

[sex scene here]

Those can get swept up at the end.

Em

 

[TheRedChamber]

If you're really writing dialogue as you state with just a name, a dash and the words without quotation marks, many readers will get confused. Quotation marks have been the standard for denoting dialogue since sometime in the 16th century and quotation marks are what most readers learned in school. I don't understand how you gain anything by changing that convention.

To be clear I'm writing the name-dash-words format just as a stop gap. I'm going back and writing proper prose afterwards. The point is to focus on the dialogue first then go back and write the descriptive language and actions afterwards. When I'm done it'll be indistinguishable for any other normally written story.

Also, I think you're missing out on some opportunities by writing the dialogue first and then coming back to fill in the details. Readers "hear" dialogue based upon either a characters normal personality or upon the mood of the character when the dialogue is being spoken. If you aren't able to match the mood with some wording describing that mood, your dialogue may not read like you intended.

For example, use simple sentence, "You're looking really hot today". Is the character speaking truthfully, or making fun of another character? It's easy for a reader to understand if you set the mood prior to the dialogue, and that mood is probably what you're hearing when you write that dialogue. See the two examples below.

Tim chuckled at June because she obviously had a hangover.

"You're looking really hot today."

Tim smiled at June because of the dress she was wearing.

"You're looking really hot today."

My concern with writing the dialogue first is being able to find the mood again and conveying that to the reader.

I'm generally aware of this stuff. In fact I tend to overwrite it. In the sense of

"This is good coffee." Tom meant what he said. This was one of the best cups of coffee he'd ever drunk and he wanted Maud to know it. etc.

When the damn coffee isn't really important. And I often spend so long getting the surround stuff written that the dialogue slows down. My aim is to be able to concentrate on the dialogue first and then make sure I giving enough but not too much inner voice.

 

[nice90sguy]

I P R E F
P I R A E
S. . .L R
E ! Y L T
T I R W O

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Easy.

 

[Voboy]

Not me. I start, proceed, stop.

I have a rolling edit technique that I use constantly, but most of what you see in the final copy was there in the first raw draft. I'm a stream of consciousness writer, and characters can arrive within the length of a paragraph and muscle into the story. My job is to keep up.

I'm lucky, I think, to be able to write like that, and from previous threads on this topic, it's not common. There are writers like me, but we make a small table.

This is exactly what I do, too.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm interested in knowing if anyone else has tried this approach or other ways of non-linear writing. I know some writers write scenes out of order (I'm also doing that at the moment, my character is dying bemoaning life choices he hasn't actually made yet) and especially I know a lot of writers like to write the ending first (or midway). Anyone ever tried anything more advanced - for example, I've seen one writing guide recommend writing a story as one sentence for each chapter, then expanding each sentance into a paragraph, and then expanding each sentence in that paragraph into its own paragraph etc.

This is approximately what I do for long/complex stories. For Red Scarf I ended up with something like this:

- Basic story concept
- Break down into chapters, figure out roughly what I want each chapter to do
- Plan out scenes for each chapter
- Write scenes

But that doesn't mean I have all the chapters and scenes planned out before I start writing the text. At the point where I'd finished writing Chapter 8, my progress might've looked something like this, with green = "complete" (unless I decide to fiddle with it), yellow = "in progress", white = "not started":



This gives me a reasonable balance between planning and pantsing. If I'm writing Chapter 9, I want to have some idea of how I'm going to structure Chapter 10, because that might require some setup in Chapter 9. But I don't need to have all the scenes for Chapter 10 planned yet, only the ones that are going to influence how I write Chapter 9.

Chapter 12 is the end of the series, so I'd planned that in a bit more detail, before I'd even made up my mind exactly how many chapters there were going to be.

Sometimes I'll skip ahead and write a scene in detail because it's closely related to an earlier scene, and it's easier to maintain continuity if I write them together. Or sometimes I know where I want to finish, so I'll write that first and then skip back to set it up.

 

[tenyari]

I almost always write stream of conscious - which means dialogue scenes can go on and on for me but I will throw in description around and within the dialogue. I'd rather one of my characters describe something than I do it. Especially as that lets me describe that something from their perspective - which in turns means I'm describing it from the POV of what matters to the story.

When I go back in edits it is often to take a piece of descriptive text and convert it into dialogue.

That noted - sometimes my dialogue can end up being too much 'just talking' so I will fill in little actions and descriptions around it.

I've often read that in editing you should try to get rid of about half to content and slim it down. I do the opposite.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

Yeah, I’ve done this with my first two stories and find I really like it.

I’ll get one or two chapters done and by this point I’ll have a feeling of how many chapters I want and what I want to happen in them, so the rest I’ll write as and when I’m in the mood, till eventually all but the last chapter are done then I’ll smash through that one.

Dunno if I’ll do that for my erotic horror (if I put it there…dunno if it’ll go anywhere else though) but we will see.

 

[Blind_Justice]

When push came to shove during the run-up to Geek Pride, Loqui and I tried to independently work on different ends of our story. Didn't work out quite how we envisioned it - too much of the end required knowledge of prior parts, so it became a matter of a few all-nighters and seat-of-out-pants editing

 

[djrip]

When push came to shove during the run-up to Geek Pride, Loqui and I tried to independently work on different ends of our story. Didn't work out quite how we envisioned it - too much of the end required knowledge of prior parts, so it became a matter of a few all-nighters and seat-of-out-pants editing

I have no idea how one would collaborate with another person on something like that. Taking turns would be weird, do you outline together first so you both know what you're aiming toward? You had stuff early on that foreshadowed or paid off with things in the last couple of pages... I guess some of that happens with editing at the end, but still... Crazy impressive! I'm talking about the first one, but I've got my eye on the next...

 

[onehitwanda]

I P R E F
P I R A E
S. . .L R
E ! Y L T
T I R W O

I hate you

 

[onehitwanda]

View attachment 2232777
Easy.

I hate you too

 

[MillieDynamite]

The opening of Camelot, the 1968 film version of the musical, is actually the end of the story. King Author remembers the rest of the story. I love the last line most, "Run boy, run, get the hell away from all this fucking music."

EDIT: Misquted "One of what we all are, PeIIi! Less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems that some of the drops sparkle, Pelli! Some of them *do* sparkIe! Run, boy! Run, boy! Run! Oh, run - my boy, get the hell away from all this fucking music."

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have no idea how one would collaborate with another person on something like that. Taking turns would be weird, do you outline together first so you both know what you're aiming toward?

It's a ton of fun bouncing off another person's thoughts. I've done it five times now, with three different writers - and in each case, pure pantser. Lob it over the fence, no notes, no outline, "Here ya go, write off that lot," usually a thousand or so words at a time. It becomes a fascinating process.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have no idea how one would collaborate with another person on something like that. Taking turns would be weird, do you outline together first so you both know what you're aiming toward? You had stuff early on that foreshadowed or paid off with things in the last couple of pages... I guess some of that happens with editing at the end, but still... Crazy impressive! I'm talking about the first one, but I've got my eye on the next...

I've written from outlines with someone else, and I've freestyle, and those ventures worked well. I only share credit with one person I wrote with, but several stories have been collaborative with my dad.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I P R E F
P I R A E
S. . .L R
E ! Y L T
T I R W O

What? What is this, Polish? Czech?

Do you think we speak two different languages? That we’re all bisexual?

Speak good English like what us normal people does.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I hate you too

You are just jealous because I found the optimal solution.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

What? What is this, Polish? Czech?

Do you think we speak two different languages? That we’re all bisexual?

Speak good English like what us normal people does.

He prefers to write spirally

 

[oneagainst]

I also often have work in progress stories studded with square brackets:

[expand on this]

[but how does X know about Y?]

[sex scene here]

Those can get swept up at the end.

Oh man, me too! Like three pages of character exposition, people in tears, the world comings apart then:

[blow job, horse walks in]

More flowery prose and people sharing feelings....

Because sometimes, you just want to skip the donkey work and get to the good parts