Writers: How much do you write that will never make it in the story?

Cafe Society
1

Describe your process.

What do you write that will never make it into the story you are writing?

How much time do you spend on outline? How much do you spend on backstory of minor characters? How much do you spend building a conpendium a la the Monster’s Manual from D&D regarding particular flora and fauna or (if contemporary fiction) paintings and gardens?

How do you write? That is really the question. I generally keep most of my ideas in my head and only put down what I intend to go actually into the story, but as I have never completed a work, I am unsure of what will eventually be cut, or if I am making a mistake by not writing EVERYTHING down.

My wife makes a living by writing encyclopedias for popular franchises that you all have definitely heard of where she catalogues every character and their relationship to the setting in order for people on the corporate level to use for their future research into the brand identity. I haven’t done that, though I have always understood quite well what she does, and have most of it in my head.

So, how do you do it?

2

I’m another writer that has yet to finish something, so technically, the answer is everything. Everything I write.

I’ve always been one of those that spent a lot of time on outline. Writing by the seat of my pants felt like I’m in a really bad improv show. Some people are great at improv, but 99% of people aren’t, and to me, it shows. I like to know whats coming so I can play with it and foreshadow.

I’ve started using various outlining techniques now that I’ve started getting more serious with my writing. Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method is the single best outlining method I’ve ever used.

Almost none. I’ll spend a considerable amount of time on backstory and relationship webs for the main characters, but minor characters usually spring up while I’m writing, as do their backstories. I like to let the creative process work a little.

I’m actually working on creating my own fantasy world (roughly half of Earth’s size) to set my stories. I’m going to go through about 10,000 years of social history and culture; all the wars, tragedies, etc., and have a historical atlas for all the major events all over the planet. I’ll have the climate and flora/fauna of every area mapped and recorded. A friend of mine thinks this is the craziest waste of time ever, but I can’t sell it enough. It’s a never ending fountain of ideas. And it helps a lot to know just where everything is and have a reference for continuity. And it’s really fun, too. I think that counts for a lot.

Ouch, sorry I spent so much time on the “not-questions,” then. :smiley:

If I get an idea, I need to write it down. I’ll never look at the notes again, just writing it once carves it into my mind, but I tend to forget everything that hasn’t been written down. Interestingly enough (to me), I wasn’t ever this way in school. If I read something, I remembered it, I never needed to take notes. I also sometimes take voice notes on the phone if I need to, it achieves the same effect.

One thing I’ve been struggling with is the rewriting issue. I’ve always gone over everything I’ve written (school essays and assignments included) after each paragraph and revised as I went along. I’ve read, and been told, that this is the worst thing you can do while you write creatively. I just haven’t learned to trust myself and the revision process yet to let stuff go for one big rewrite/edit. There’s just as much a science of storytelling as there is a creative/imaginative aspect. I have to trust that I really do know what I’m doing and that I’ll be able to recognize the flaws and fix them during edits. So far, no dice.

So to answer the actual question, I’d say about 20% of what I write doesn’t make it into the story. But as I’ve never actually gotten to the end of anything, this number could be a whole lot higher. I’m not afraid to cut entire scenes when I don’t think they work, and I’m not afraid of cutting really cool lines of dialogue or exposition, either. I’m ruthless and cold like that. I’m like a sports franchise that cuts you after a single season of poor play.

3

As in, makes it into a *published *story?

So far, nothing.

4

Jules Andre Very cool, your response was exactly what I am looking for. Thanks for introducing me to the Snowflake Method.

As for the Flora and Fauna and History and such. I am doing a similar thing but haven’t figured out how to do it. Part of me thinks I really should make an actual physical model of the globe, and that would help. Otherwise the task is so daunting that I am uncertain of what to do.

5

Bits and pieces, and additional depth, I guess. Usually nothing really major unless it’s something I’ve already cut or developed away from, or have in mind for a sequel. :slight_smile: But often it’s more like expanded details on something seen in the story, not heavy details and backstory for something that never gets seen or mentioned at all.

I can generally make up details and consistent fleshing out if needed, on a pretty short notice, though. That outta make the future encyclopedia writers happy. :smiley:

6

This is the granddaddy of all “it depends” questions. Issac Asimov and Harlan Ellison published almost entirely the story as it was written the first pass through, with perhaps some minor corrections and touch-ups. Leo Rosten one said that when he was writing Captain Newman, MD, essentially a series of short stories strung together to form a novel, each story would be rewritten up to 70 times. It’s legendary and true that editor Maxwell Perkins hacked Thomas Wolfe’s Of Time and the River out of a million word manuscript. James Joyce rewrote practically as the presses were hitting the sheets of paper.

Science fiction and fantasy worlds are often special cases. Many authors do spend much time setting up their worlds in great detail. Many of those authors also bore their readers to death regurgitating background information of no interest to the story.

My opinion is that the story is everything. If the story needs background then every bit of research must be done just to make sure the reader doesn’t stumble. But if a character lives on the page then it doesn’t matter whether the character sprang Athena-like from the brow or was the product of backstory.

Personally, I’ve rewritten stories many times to get an effect I wanted, I threw out the entire second half of a story because I felt it was a cliché and not illuminating of the character, and I’ve changed nothing but a few words and sentences after the story hit the page. You need to develop that internal editor that tells you whether the story works or not and whether it achieves the goals you set out for it. And whether that is apparent to the reader. I had a story I thought was fine and readers turned thumbs down to. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that I hadn’t included a key scene that would tell the readers what I already knew in my head. That’s a continuing problem for f&sf works. The reader comes into the story with no knowledge of the world. Yet selecting the right scenes and stories to tell of that world is far more important than dumping data.

No formula is possible because the story is everything. It has its own life.

Ever author is different. I’ve never outlined anything. Some authors couldn’t write a grocery list without an outline. You can certainly try different approaches to see what is comfortable for you. But never think that because somebody else works one way that you should. Your writing is your personality. Yet you are never the same from day to day or with different groups of people. You write an image for each situation out of the core construct that is you. Writing on paper is no different.

7

I have started many novels and never finished any, nor come close. I have finished about twenty short stories and published about ten of them.

For my short stories, every single word that I write is intended to go into the story. Sometimes chunks of prose have to removed in the editing process, but I never do any outlines, brainstorming, word webs, or anything of the sort. I find that the best process for writing a story is to sit at my desk, turn on the computer, and write until the story is finished. Generally, when I write stories in this manner, there’s very little editing required beyond basic grammar. By contrast, when I write a story over the course of several days or weeks, it ends up getting bent out of shape and I have to spend a lot of time rewriting the various parts to get them in sync with each other.

For novels, writing it all in one sitting is obviously out of the question. However, one can apply the same philosophy to chapters: write each chapter in one sitting.

In my writing groups I find that young authors tend to pour tremendous effort into the backstory, maps, histories, geneologies, and other things that won’t actually go into the text, and it often hampers their efforts to write real chapters. This includes myself–I fell into this trap with several of my first big projects.

8

Glad I could help! When I decided I actually wanted to go through this process with the fantasy world, I went to Michael’s Crafts and bought small styrofoam globes to make a physical model with. I realized it would be prohibitively difficult to get the physical model transferred to paper accurately and back. I skipped the entire process when I realized I could draw a map and use a sinusoidal projection to get a roughly globelike appearance.

My approach is to be as thorough and scientific as possible, but using only an elementary approach to the science. When I first started I got the idea to start with a rough tectonic map. Every hour I spent researching tectonics was another two hours of stuff I needed to learn to get it right. I figured I’d need to just be very basic with the science stuff so I could actually get somewhere. So my rough process so far was a tectonic map so I knew where the landmasses and mountains were. Climatology next so I knew what the land looked like, hich also tells me what grows there and what can live there. Then people.

This is the trap, for sure. After spending so much time working on all that information, it becomes nearly impossible to resist the urge to tell people all about it. And of all the work put into those worlds, maybe 5% of it is relevant to a good story. Many, many authors just make it up as they go, with no concern for accuracy or consistency, and they get published and have successful careers. I read once that you won’t get published for your map, no matter how in depth and realistic it is. It’s true.

As to another thing I forgot to mention mswas: If you’re thinking you should write everything down, then I would just jot everything down, even if it might not make it into the final story. All you lose is a little time to take the note, and the piece of paper. I’ve cut ideas and scenes before and because I don’t throw anything away (I write on Microsoft Word, and everything I cut is copy pasted into a “garbage bin” file), I have sometimes gone back and discovered how a once discarded scene could be changed to make work. Once the story is done, then you can throw it out. It’s all information, and I’ve always felt having as much information as possible is a good thing.

9

I used to do this a lot, but I found a device, I’ll share with you. I put auxillary characters in now. I use a lot of humour in my works so it’s easy for me. I have a character Aunt Rose, who I would throw in each short story I wrote.

Now I’ve come to the point where Rose actually developed more through being in one paragraph of everyone else’s story. I have enough material now to write about her.

So I write everything down. And then what was left after an edit or a stroyline that is written into a corner, I’d see if I could have Aunt Rose pop in. Then I’d use what I could and store the rest. Now I have more than enough material for Aunt Rose to visit everyone at Christmas, with perdictable hilarious results

:slight_smile:

10

Markxxx That’s pretty cool. I have a few secondary characters that I have fallen in love with who have a more human story than the protagonist. I’m feeling I need to write down their story. If I do it’ll help flesh out the world.

11

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, wrote with quill pens, which he made himself. Apparently he published his first drafts, hardly ever editing anything. In his long & extremely busy life, he also managed to write prolifically, in several styles. But he became famous for his intricate fantasies.

Which shows that different writers have different methods. Although his method wouldn’t work for us mere mortals…

12

I have an ongoing serial story, published online, as well as a romance novel, originally published in 2002. I also have an unpublished gothic romance/mystery novel in progress, and a screenplay, pretty much backburnered.

I’ll address the published novel first, because that was the easiest believe it or not! For the novel, I created fairly minor character biographies for the lead couple; normally I would have done much more extensive preparation, but since the book was a ‘gimmick’ gift product, a full-length novel where the leads are personalized with customers’ own information, there wasn’t much backstory I could give 'em.

However, due to the plot (which was based around a reality TV show), I had to create a rather extensive set of rules relating to how the gameshow worked, including how points were awarded, various penalties for misbehavior, and so on. Most of this stuff wasn’t included in the book proper, but it helped me get a grip on how the game was played so I knew what the characters could and couldn’t do. Also, I needed the host (a non-personalizesd character) to refer now and then to the history of the tropical island where the game was set, so I invented a history for the region – most of which I removed from the book itself or never really included it.

For the gothic romance/mystery, still in progress, I’ve written the entire plot in summary form. I did so using my own method of writing bassackwards. Well, not really “my own” … I doubt it’s unusual or revolutionary or anything, I’m absolutely sure others have used it before me. I just mean I sorta had a brainstorm and gave it a try without seeing it elsewhere. Basically, I knew how I wanted the story to end, but not exactly how to get there. So I decided to do things backwards: write down how the book would end, and then ask myself: “okay, so what exactly would have to happen in the previous scene in order to get to this finale?” I wrote down the events that would logically occur immediately prior to the ending. Then I asked: “now what would lead to this scene?” And so on and so on. Writing my story backwards gave me the path to create the entire outline.

Anyway, in addition to the outline, the fact that this is a historical novel, set in a real place (Cornwall), means a lot more research than I ever had to do for the contemporary gameshow romance set in a fake tropical island. I’ve got tons of info on Victorian customs, Cornish language/geography/meteorology, legal research on entailments (basically estate planning and so on)… And of course, character profiles and timelines, the latter being especially important since there is a mystery at the heart of the story, so I need to keep track of where everyone is at what time. Much of this stuff is on notecards.

The screenplay will require lots of research, if I do decided to go forward with it, because it takes place during WWII and relates a military incident and subsequent courtroom drama. Right now, I have an outline for the plot, created on notecards and in old fashioned notebooks w/pen & paper. Should I continue, I will develop character bios and an extremely detailed timeline, not to mention an assload of historical and legal data. My own insecurities about my suitability for the task has made me postpone the project. Which is too bad, because right now would be a perfect time for the treatment, considering various current events. (In fact it might be a little too on-the-nose. Ah well.)

Finally, the ongoing serial, which has been my biggest and most rewarding [del]headache[/del] project since its inception in 1995. For this, my partner and I created a lengthy outline document in narrative format, developing the arcs for each main character as well as subplots and supporting characters. Each of the twenty or so main characters received a biography, far lengthier than has ever been seen in the “live” version.

After writing the longform narrative, we created breakdowns that roughly divided the storylines into timelines and seasons. (We use “season” to describe the dividing point for each longterm arc, although the seasons aren’t annual, like TV seasons. They’re usually a couple of years long.) Anyway, once broken down into seasons, the storylines then get further divvied up into one- or two-sentence scene descriptions, which are distributed into episodes/installments, with each storyline usually getting three our four scenes per episode.

The only time any of this summary material is seen by the public is in very brief episode previews, where I might include one or two of the one-line scene descriptions to show what’s ahead.

The bios are also severely truncated and available online, but most of the stuff is only referred to in passing at the most.

From the start, we – I say “we” although right now I’m writing solo, because originally there were three of us developing/writing the serial – created timelines and town maps to keep us all aware of the local history & geography, as well as descriptions of each of the main town locations. Some of this stuff is available at the serial website, but most of it is pure background info. Although I recently upgraded my server to allow for addition of a MediaWiki site (i.e. the software that runs Wikipedia), and I would like to create a wiki devoted to the serial so as to allow readers to delve more deeply into the backstory, if they want. I suspect a lot of this heretofore unpublished background material will now see the light of day at last. Of course, not all of it – the series characters have a lot of secrets in their pasts, and obviously I don’t want to reveal the many mystery answers that these histories contain.

It’s very easy to get addicted to worldbuilding when creating a tale, even when your story is set in a real time/real place. Sometimes the planning is as much fun, if not moreso, than the writing. But eventually you have to drag yourself away from the worldbuilding and hunker down and just write already.

13

I should mention that I’ve had a novel and over 40 short stories published in pro markets.

Depends on the story, but most everything I write goes in. I’ll cut stuff when editing, and also add things to flesh out the story or cover plot holes.

Not a single moment. I don’t outline. The backstory of minor characters becomes apparent as they come into the story. I love starting a scene with new characters because I want to see what they say in order to learn what they’re all about.

I once started a scene with a bunch of strangers at a table and, by the end of the scene, learned all about them (and without them giving anything other than regular dinner table conversation).

I’ll do a compendium in a novel when it’s completed to avoid contradictions, but I’ll bring in flowers and fauna as needed for the story.

Start with a general idea and start putting words on paper. Write a story that interests me and see where it goes.

Everyone works differently, and some writers swear by outlines. But don’t worry if something you wrote has to be cut. Write the story and decide when you’re done. It’s hard to strike the balance between putting just the right amount of things in a story, but you can’t begin to figure it out until the first draft is complete.

14

Right now I am having trouble writing because I don’t know what comes next. I know what comes later, but I don’t really know what comes next.

15

So write what comes later. That will tell you what comes next.

16

This is the same situation I was in, mswas. If you do want to outline, why not give my ‘plot backwards’ method a try? Write down what happens later, and then think about the events or developments that need to occur immediately prior to the “later” stuff. Of course this may be more useful to a plot-heavy story or novel.

Let’s look at an example. Say your story’s about, I dunno, a kid who’s witnessed the murder of his stepfather and has been trying to figure out whodunnit. You know you want a climax where the kid is caught in a creepy old barn that’s set ablaze. Write that plot strand down.

[ul][li]Adam wakes up and realizes he’s in the old abandoned farm’s barn and smells smoke. Tries to get out but finds the barn door is locked.[/ul][/li]
Okay, take a look at that scenario. What would happen just before this? How did the kid get into the barn? We want him to “wake up” in the middle of a fire, so this indicates he was knocked unconscious or drugged somehow. Did this happen in the barn itself? Maybe someone conks him on the head once he entered the barn. Then again, probably would be stupid for a kid who knows there’s a murderer walking around to go traipsing into a barn by himself. And why would he be there, anyway? All right, let’s say he’s knocked out somewhere else and only awakens to find himself trapped in the barn. Cool, that gives us a scene to write. The timeline now goes:

[ul][li]Adam walks into his darkened house, surprised and wary that no one’s apparently home. Starts to head for the phone when he hears a footstep behind him just before feeling a painful blow to his head; falls unconscious.[/li][li]Adam wakes up and realizes he’s in the old abandoned barn and smells smoke. Tries to get out but finds the barn door is locked.[/ul][/li]
But y’know, we may decide that this isn’t good enough or suitable to the mood of the story. The shock of an attack in the dark is fine and all, but isn’t eerie suspense more rewarding in the longrun? Might extend the horror if Adam has to enter the barn on his own, where you can describe the creepy surroundings (weird creaks, shadowy corners, etc.) and his growing terror as he walks into danger.

But we’re back to the earlier question: why would he willingly go into the barn? If he’s a smart kid, the decision needs to be justified so he doesn’t seem like a damsel-in-distress who walks into a dangerous situation for no good reason. So maybe he was coerced there; perhaps the murderer called him and said his little sister Lindsay was in trouble in the barn and Adam needs to come alone. Makes sense because we plan to establish earlier that since the death of his stepfather, Adam’s been overly protective of little Lindsay. So let’s change the scene timeline to:

[ul][li]Adam walks into his darkened house, surprised and wary. Calls out to see if Lindsay’s home from school. Phone rings; he answers. Whispered voice tells him Lindsay’s in danger – go out to old barn, come alone.[/li][li]Heads out to barn, which has always terrified him. (Note: set this up earlier…) It’s dark out, dead tree branches clatter in wind, lots of atmosphere, etc. [/li][li]Girding himself, Adam enters barn, calling Lindsay’s name. Hears noise up in loft. Suddenly bonked on head.[/li][li]Adam wakes up and realizes he’s in the old abandoned barn and smells smoke. Tries to get out but finds the barn door is locked.[/ul][/li]
So now we’ve got what happens in the scene(s) before the fire. We also decided that Adam’s fear of the old barn needs to be established earlier in the story so as to give this plot point extra creepy factor (and also to make Adam’s decision to go after Lindsay there extra brave).

What needs to happen before the “Adam walks into house” scene? Hm. Why is Lindsay not home? Is this coincidence/convenience (yuck) that benefits the murderer? Or did the murderer lure Lindsay out of the house so as to use her as bait? Depending on the answer, we could have a scene from Lindsay’s POV where she just decides to go over to a friend’s house, or where she’s walking home and enters someone’s car (presumably the murderer is someone she knows).

Which leads to a new question: by this point, does Adam (and by extension, the audience) know the identity of the murderer? It’s clear that the murderer thinks Adam is a serious threat, so perhaps if nothing else, the killer suspects his/her identity may be known … but s/he could be wrong.

OTOH, if Adam does know who the killer is – and if Adam is our POV character, the readers probably know the identity too – we don’t have to hide the murderer anymore, which means we have the opportunity to switch to the killer’s perspective to view the whole cat-and-mouse game from both sides.

… Anyway, you see how this works now and I’ve yammered on enough. I just wanted to toss out some ideas on how you can use my “plot backwards” method to brainstorm and fill in some story gaps. Hope this helps!

17

Pretty much everything I write ends up in the story–well is the story. I don’t do summaries, outlines, character sketches, or exploratory drafts. Sometimes, I have no idea what is happening or who the characters are until the words are showing up on the page. Usually, this is just fine, but there are two recent exceptions.

  1. I just sold a novel to a publisher I’ve never worked with before. Before I signed the contract, they made it very clear that the first 3 chapters need to be edited. I write romance novels, and they were concerned that the main love interest didn’t show up until chapter 4! Well, that’s because I had no idea that character even was the main love interest. At the very most, I thought he’d be a one night stand. But nope, he was the guy who got the HEA. As a result, the beginning of the book wasn’t as focused as it could be. That’s never happened to me before, and I hope it doesn’t again. Nothing matters to a romance more than the main characters! I should know who they are from the first word.

  2. My writing partner and I just finished a paranormal/urban fantasy romance. Part of it relates to a world in another dimension. The whole plot is pretty complicated, and on top of that, I had to create a world that was fully realized and internally consistent for the Hero. I hate worldbuidling. I hate it. When on my own, I always write contemporaries–there’s a reason for that. Anyway, I didn’t write a bunch of excessive background stuff, but I had to keep the rules/details/description of this entire world in my head at all times. In hindsight, I probably should have done some basic sketches, but it worked out okay. It’s not something I want to repeat though.

18

I, personally, never outline. Then again, I’ve usually been working out the basic storyline in my head weeks or months before I start writing. I also generally wait until I know how it’s going to end before sitting down to write - the way I work, if I’ve got a beginning and a resolution, the rest is fairly easy (or as easy as writing can be, which is not very). I should mention that (not to brag) I’m one of the 1% who’s pretty damned good at improvising, and I can almost always find a way to tie everything together even if I write with no intention of doing so originally. So I’m lucky in that respect.

As far as the process, I take notes all the time - you never know when inspiration will hit - and then use or discard whatever will fit/not fit. The inspiration’s easy; sitting down to actually write is where the pain comes in, and it can get disheartening when you want to get to the big exciting moments but you have to lay all the groundwork. Still, it’s pretty fucking rewarding when you actually finish something.

As far as what to keep, my rule of thumb is to wait a month after you’ve finished a work and then go back and edit, so you won’t be too close to it. Then I’ll wait another 3 weeks to a month and do a second edit. Gets rid of a lot of unnecessary stuff you might not recognize as such the first time around.

19

Most will make it in some form, though it’ll go through many drafts to get there, so it depends on what your definitions are I suppose. Exact words, probably most ends up gone, but general point, most makes the cut.

If you’re referring to a formal written outline, very little. There’s an arc in my head as to where it’s going always. I have written things that started out comic and ended up serious and vice versa, but they still tend to follow that arc.

An absolutely ridiculous amount of time. Probably too much in fact. I’ve actually downloaded and altered pictures of the houses I think they would have grown up in and listened to dialect recordings of people from that area and researched the schools/industry/crime/neighborhoods of their childhood. Much of it I keep in a sort of compendium that could be included in “stuff that’s left out”, but it was never intended to make it into the story. (As a former government documents librarian I’ve even looked up data on the commonality of their name in censuses and how much a person of their profession would have earned in 1942 and what the most common kinds of car driven in that area were, that kind of stuff.)

Since most of what I write is either autobiographical to some extent or, if fictional, based on actual places, this is probably n/a beyond basic research and roadtrips. If I see something (whether a museum exhibit on ancient Roman art or an abandoned house covered in kudzu) I take pics from every possible angle for future reference. I also do a lot of photoshopping (actually a Big Lots off-brand photoshop like program) that I’ll use to see how something might look in a different setting.

For a Civil War piece I made a 200 mile day trip to see a particular bridge [not the same but in the same location] and went to any public attractions that had living mules to get a notion of how they feel and the sound of their breathing. (I used to ride horses but have almost no experience around mules.)

I have several historical fiction stories I’d love to develop but don’t feel I can until I travel to the places (northern Germany and Turkey particularly).

I’ve fallen out of my routine lately, but I used to write about 2 or 3 hours each night. I plan to fall back into that groove once this quarter is over at the college where I work.

I’ve completed works but never submitted them for publication other than a few short stories. I constantly doodle and leave notes for myself and if its something that I don’t want to work into a plot at the moment I’ll email it to myself so I can pick it up later, often with an attached photo. (Pictures are a big thing for me as focal points and jogging memories.)

20

I was at a party once and a group of friends started talking about a writing cooperative/weekend - where a few get together and write a story over a weekend, feeding off each other and thowing out ideas. I could never get myself going, but wanted to write. So I wrote a 3 page chapter as a “resume” to see if I could join. I found out later that no one else pursued the idea. But at least I had a chapter! {yeah me}

I find that I have a few scenes or things that I would like to “see” but I haven’t sat down and tried to write them. The daunting task lays before me syndrome and the I can’t start unless I have an arc in mind syndrome. How do you (youse, y’all) address that?