katallison | (no subject)

So I posted something earlier today about getting back into writing, and in a comment,

cesperanza pointed out that I'm really a "Method" writer, one who (like a Method actor) spends a lot of time upfront thinking through characters' emotions and motivations, and then has to struggle to figure out what the characters should do to express those; whereas she writes in what she calls the "British" method, analogous to the great British actors who stand *here* and say the line and then walk over *there* and do that piece of business, and work back from there to discern and build in the emotional underpinnings.

And now I'm fascinated by this, because I just assumed that everyone goes about writing in the same way I do, more or less, and I'm having fun trying to get my head around what it would be like to simply have some scenes in mind, and write them out, without having already done a lot of sort of preparatory emotional outlining to guide the process. And because I have a ton of other stuff I should be doing, I thought that instead I'd -- that's right, do a poll!

[Poll #511623]

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Wandered over here via metafandom and because writing process is one of the most fascinating things ever--I teach creative writing (and students write whatever they wish, including fanfiction, I teach process and workshopping not content genres or "literary style,"), and am fascinated by range of processes, how different things work for different people.

The equivalent terms I have for Method and British are from composition, Planning and Process. Some people don't write a draft until they have it all planned out. Others figure it out as they go along.

I am heavy process in all genres I work in (I write original poetry, fanfiction, academic scholarship).

For fanfiction, I tend to get a "flash" (I get a lot of flashes), and the sense of a shape, and then I start writing, and then the characters do what they do. I write LOTR FPS (and there steal the plot from the source, although I change it for AUs) and RPS (and that's a lot more open, driven by the characters). I sometimes makes notes for a scene which just means that the characters than have something *not* to do and they go off and do their own thing. I know I've read a lot of rants against people who talk about their writing this way, and I understand why (especially if this process is seen as better than others in some way). But I don't privilege it--it's not better or worse than any other process (and I'd defy most people to tell the process from the product), it's just the way I write and always have. And I don't always think it's the best--in academic work, it can take me seven drafts to figure out wtf I want to say. Poems and stories being less "thesis" driven are easier to work out through my process, though since I tend to write long WIP's, I don't have to "figure it all out" over and over again.

At times, whole scenes are dictated to me, literally in the persona of a voice telling me the story. Sometimes it's not that easy. But I never have that clear sense of control that comes from planning. Sometimes I'd like to, but it never happens, and since I keep writing, I figure, why worry too much.