(no subject)

[katallison]

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]

Comments

[estrella30.livejournal.com]

When I write I will have usually one specific thing, a line of dialogue, a picture of a scene in my head, etc, that kind of generates the whole story. But, the actual story that it gets into is sometimes as much of a surprise to me as it is everyone else, lol. I'll have a line, think of a general story around it and start writing, and more ofen than not I have nothing plotted or planned other than that very vague idea. Most of the time the characters will then say or do things which generally steer the story itself, and I am able to write something out, reread it and say, "No, this isnt really what I was looking for you to do," and then erase it and start over.

I *wish* I had like, a fimr plot or motivations sometimes, because I think it might be harder for me to then pull myself away from what I've written and see if the characters are all acting the way they *should* be from the wtory I've written, but I usually find that if I plot too hard then I *try* too hard, and wind up frustrating myself and writing nothing *g*

Thanks for doing this poll! I always love to see how people write the way they do!