*points up*

@wincing.at.light: You’re “a ’seat of my pants’ writer” literally? Does that mean that you write on the seat of your pants or with them?

Most of my simulations (as Alexandra put it so well) happen on my hour commute to and from work. By the time I arrive home, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen next because I’ve spent the time thinking about what’s the most logical reaction of my characters to the current situation they’ve found themselves in.

Often I know that some event or scene will come to pass in the story… unless something else comes along and derails it. It’s like looking at something in real life, in the absence of perfect information, you can make an informed guess which, based on everything you know and everything you can see, is what -will- come to pass… but something you couldn’t have known about is part of the equation.

In the end, my “pre-writing” time is a lot like running the characters through simulations to find out what’s likely to happen… and then when I get down to writing, I find out what actually does.

@Eli – ta very much. I was using the equation as a shorthand for James’ idea. The full quotation is:

“What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? What is a picture or a novel that is not of character? What else do we seek in it and find in it..?”

It’s taken from James’ essay The Art of Fiction. The most readable online version I can find is here:

http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/aa810/james-05.htm

On the general principle of planning, I’m not sure it’s best to avoid it entirely. For many writers, I think a lot of planning goes on mentally without much being written down. Novelists from Dickens to Terry Pratchett (hmm, two quite similar writers in some ways) have recommended long walks as a way of coming up with ideas and developing characters, which suggests some kind of internal process.

Example of a novelist who does a lot of written planning (or so he’s said): Philip Pullman.

I suppose an interesting comparison is with screenwriters for soaps. They have to write very much by the seats of their pants, but they still tend to operate within pre-planned story arcs of varying lengths, filling in the details as they go. One of the ways they come up with ideas is to cannibalise classic plots: they’ll have a “Romeo and Juliet” story running side by side with a “Lear” story.

So I think there’s seat of your pants and seat of your pants: I think more planning (at least of the internal, mental form) goes into a lot of writing than sometimes seems to be the case. For the writer of web fiction, it’s a matter of striking a balance between the competing demands of structure and immediacy.

I know that I’m getting as much traffic on one-chapter-at-a-time posts as I’m getting on the full downloads. I don’t know how much overlap there is between users, but that’s okay.

Re: planning out fiction

I write by the seat of my pants. The closest thing I have to an organization scheme is a series of post-it notes with cool ideas and snatches of dialogue. I learned a long time ago that if I plan a narrative out completely and prepare an outline, I don’t ever get around to writing the story. Why would I want to invest the months to write a story that I already know the ending to?

Finding out “what happens next” is as much fun for the writer as it is for the reader.

My apologies for not joining in earlier. The rest of the blame must be leveled at Alexandra – I spent an hour or so reading Tales Of MU when I should’ve been thinking about your thoughts, ideas and points.

Grr addictive reading grr.

Alright, the things I’ve been thinking about as I read though the above discussions:

1, I agree wholeheartedly that it’s a lot easier to write when you don’t plan. Thank God there are other people who vehemently believe in that: I’m a new convert, you see, and this makes my life so much easier.

Bill, I heart you for saying this:

One of the things I learned is that if you have strong characters they’ll almost write the story for you. Henry James’ famous equation, character = action, is really true.

2, On the topic of reading a story from the beginning to the end: I believe people will read anything that’s been passionately and honestly crafted. I’ll let this post do the talking for me: Amber Simmons makes her point so much better than I do.

3, Alexandra: isn’t Tales of Mu already a blog? Arghh, whatever. It’s just too good to stop reading … who cares what medium it’s in.

@Windvein:
Indeed, it was Tyree’s article (which I also found via blooking central), and others like it, that I was responding to.

I’m not, however, saying that a story must have a beginning, middle and end. I was mostly trying to point out that if Tyree is right in his prediction, he will be right only by accident – there are many other forms of prose that people will (and do!) read and enjoy greatly on the internet, and any of them could be the form taken by “The Great American Blog Novel,” if such a thing is ever written.

Also, I’m looking forward to reading your cleverly named story :D.

@ Lexy Erin:
It’s great to see you commenting here! I’ve been following MU for quite a while, and I do my best to keep up with your other writing. I hope to (figuratively) see more of you around. :)

@Bill:
Thanks for expounding on Dickens’ serials! You definitely have more knowledge in that arena than I, and the lesson was much appreciated.

That’s true. It’s easy to get ‘paralysis of analysis’ – to get so tied up with creating an elegant, efficient story that the whole thing takes longer than it should.

I’ve written a lot of drama for students. When I first started I actually read several screenwriting books (McKee et. al). They’re very useful, but they really promote the obsessive, planning-intensive approach.

I adopted that approach and wrote some material that was very popular with actors and audiences. But afterwards I realised I didn’t need to spend so much time doing it.

One of the things I learned is that if you have strong characters they’ll almost write the story for you. Henry James’ famous equation, character = action, is really true.

Just thought of another example of a famous writer who apparently didn’t do much planning – Shakespeare.

In the intro to the First Folio, Heminges and Condell wrote of him: ‘…he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: and what he thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers.’

BTW, @Sebatinsky: “I do beg to differ on one point, though. I don’t think an *adequate* form has yet to arrive – I think a *standardized* form has yet to arrive.”

Yep, I’ve decided you’re right. Perhaps another way of putting it might be to say that the web is still in the early stages of settling down as a storytelling medium.

@Eli: sorry about the epic comment length. I didn’t have time to write a short one…

I usually have an idea where a certain chain of events is heading, but when I see the end of a particular line I don’t think, “Okay, now I need to work out the most precise chain of events that will bring that about, within n amount of pages.” I just say, “I can’t wait until that gets here.”

Sometimes something else happens first and derails the expected outcome, but… such is life, so why should such not be fiction as well?

In point of fact, I’m finding as I proceed with the current plotline in Tales of MU that I may have (once again) prematurely named the current book. The events which I’m calling “Class Acts” are still happening, but it’s starting to seem like a whole book’s worth of interesting events may happen before them.

We’re accustomed to thinking of Bleak House or David Copperfield as ‘novels’, when, in fact, they’re not: like much successful web fiction, they’re serials.

What we know of Dickens’ planning methods suggests that his characters and storylines grew as the individual serials grew. He usually planned in detail a couple of installments in advance. Even then, his planning wasn’t concrete. His notes are full of question marks and hints of alternative suggestions.

The classic example is his last serial, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood. Gallons of critical ink has been spilt over the question of who murdered Edwin Drood, but the answer is right there in Dickens’ notes (which are included in the Penguin edition): he didn’t know the identity of the murderer himself, because he was waiting to see how the installments panned out. The story was only planned in a loose way.

That approach may seem casual to us, largely because the stories we’re most familiar with – Hollywood movies – are so meticulously planned.

You might say that Dickens was a gardener. He grew his story from idea seeds, knowing roughly how they would turn out, but not exactly. Equally, you might say that many modern writers, especially screenwriters, are architects. They plan their plot in detail, in advance.

The success of online fiction may depend on us getting back to the looser, improvisatory approach that Dickens took.

The internet allows you to be incredibly successful marketing to a niche. The best way to market to a niche is to do so authentically. The best way to do so authentically is to not even bother trying. We’re all in a niche.

Write EXACTLY what you want, without caring if it will appeal to everybody, and you will find yourself deeply appreciated by people who marvel at having found something that spoke to them so specifically.

I do think part of the adage holds true, though not as an absolute… the “Don’t write a traditional story with a beginning, middle, and end.” There’s a lot of potential in that sentence.

Some people read books because they want to know how the story ends. Others read hoping that it never does. A print novel can’t cater to the second group as well as a web novel can.