(no subject)

[oakenguy]

Stephen King's driving me nuts.

It's not his fault, of course. It's just that 'In Writing' he talks about his belief that stories are 'found objects', and that writing a story is an experience like excavating a fossil--you start knowing what's above the surface, but it's only in the process of writing do you discover what the true shape of the piece looks like.

It's novel-writing as improv. It goes against every Virgo instinct in my body. It's performing without a net. And knowing that he wrote 'Misery' like that, originally intending it to be a gruesome little 100-page story with a sick twist ending, and only discovering as he went along how interesting and resourceful his characters were...it makes me want to pull my hair out.

And yet....and yet....I'm trying it. Throwing out the outlines and obsessive chart-making that I've been struggling with in trying to write my scripts, and making it up as I go along.

And so far? So far (4000 words into it), it's working better than I imagined.

GodDAMN it.

Comments

[frla.livejournal.com]

Laugh
I have always written like that
in fact,.. it's only in this script we are doing now that I have opted to use things like plot outlines and such.

Odd that,
no?

KK!

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Poor, poor Bri. The closest I can get to that feeling was the revelation I had, years and years ago, that I *didn't* have to have carefully drawn dungeons and pages and pages of writeup to run a game for people. I could, in fact, pull most of it out of my ass if I had a general mushy sort of shape in my head.

My writing, on the other hand, has mostly been out of my ass. Which tells one something about the quality. :}

Works that way for me too....

[ladyciaran.livejournal.com]

I'm not much of a writer--been in a constant case of writer's block for about the past ten years--but roleplaying has a similar funtion for me. The character I'm running now started out one way, very bare-bones, and then proceeded to pick herself up and evolve into a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT person from what she was intended to be. It's a surreal experience, watching this character, that you sort of view as a person that you *thought* you knew pretty well--you created them, after all-- become someone OTHER.

Hi, btw. :)

Re: Works that way for me too....

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Ooo, yeah, that rp alchemy is so fun when it takes off, isn't it? Heavenscalyx and Jadasc have both GMed me into situations where I pretty much had to sit back and let the character 'ride' me.

Good to see you. :)