(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

[dsudis.livejournal.com]

I think I'm Method, sort of, in the way that Viggo Mortensen was said to be Method when he worked on Lord of the Rings: regardless of how much thought I put into it beforehand, when I'm working on a story too long to be written in a single sitting, I go there, and I don't come out. I think about it all the time, whether I'm actually putting down words or not, which tends to mean I work out a lot of backstory and afterstory and sidestory and motivation and map out future scenes and research all kinds of minute and ridiculous aspects of the story and so on. On the one hand, it makes writing difficult when I can't get myself to focus on one thing long enough to totally immerse myself in it, and on the other hand, it's how I wound up writing the hockey AU.