Are there any writers on /lit/?
Do you write an outline when working on a story, or just wing it once you have a general story in your head?
What works better?
I usually wing short stuff. Longer works I definitely have a loose plan.
>>8271840
i start by winging it, lots of shit falls out, i put it in an outline, voila
>My son is scowling at a piece of paper.
>“What’s that?” I ask.
>“A semantic map!”
>“A what?”
>“I have to write a story and I’m supposed to map out everything that’s going to happen so that my teacher can mark it. She says it’ll stop me writing the wrong things.”
>(He’s aged ten and yet she’s already destroying his pleasure in writing just as someone once destroyed hers.)
>“Why not draw the map afterwards?”
>“But how will I know what to write?”
>“Have you ever been on the beach and discovered a cave?”
>“Yes.”
>“Did you go in?”
>“Of course.”
>“Well – writing a story can be like creeping into a forbidden house, or lowering a gigantic hook into a haunted lake.”
>He likes this idea.
>“But how do I begin?”
>“Start with something ordinary and then have something mysterious happen.”
>He goes away for a while, full of enthusiasm, but then he comes back disheartened.
>“I’m stuck!”
>“What’s your story about?”
>“It’s about a boy who has to write a story.”
>“Is he in trouble?”
>“No.”
>“Well, stories are about people who get into trouble.”
>He rushes off for a whole hour and comes back looking pleased.
>“He’s in such a mess. Now what?”
>“Either rescue him or make him suffer more.”
>“But how can I end my story?”
>“Feed things back in that happened earlier. Where did your story begin?”
>“At school.”
>“Then why not work the school into the end of the story? Stuff you’ve mentioned earlier should be reincorporated.”
>“Reincorporated?”
>“Fed back in. Oroborus.”
>“What’s oroborus?”
>“A snake eating its tail.”
I am not a writer, but now I am.
>>8272003
>I'm writer.
>>8272003
Boy you best start making sense real soon
>>8272010
I made sense there, but not now.
>>8271952
what a bad pasta mate 1.5/10
>>8272003
Nah, but you think you are.
>>8272218
I was now.
>>8272205
I don't think it was pasta, I think he was just trying to give good writing advice.
>>8272303
I wrote about 5-10 short stories like this, but there was a very simplistic narrative pattern at the heart of most of the works.
Trying to write longer form stuff, dedicating entire notebooks to meticulous planning. Mapping character's histories and relations to one another and how these relationships and the narratives events ripple through the text allows for more sophisticated storytelling, I think.
>>8271840
I use a detailed outline
Does anyone know about what other authors have done? I know Fitzgerald usually had an outline and planned things out
>>8272654
There was someone who used to pin chapters to their wall and then change their physical position to see where they best fit the whole. Damned if I can remember that asshole's name, though.
if you can start from scratch, no mental outline, nothing, and write a straight story with decent prose quality that needs only minor additions/parings and is publishably complete, you must be very good, right?
ae housman/houseman said some poems finished in one sitting, others took decades
>>8271952
>“I have to write a story and I’m supposed to map out everything that’s going to happen
I absolutely hate this shit man. They also try to explain to you that every story is the same formulaic plot line. "Exposition. Rising point. Climax. Falling point. End."
This is absolutely true about every story but the emphasis on this in class is terrible and the teacher will mark you down if they cannot clearly find these points in your story. It basically turns everyone's story into a basic family guy episode with a very clear cut plot line.
/autistic rant
