Laila
12-21-2008, 05:27 AM
Hello everybody,
As so many of you I am also rather invested in writing - but I have been in a bit of a problematic patch for quite a while.
When i was younger I would just start writing, it would flow out of me and I loved and enjoyed it. Nowadays I think I have read so much theory and so many people have told me that I have talent and should earn money with this that I started over-thinking the whole process. And then again maybe not.
I remember that when I was jut writing into the blue - frequently I wouldn't actually finish the stories because I wrote myself into situations that didn't really make sense or didn't work or just completely stumped me.
I wanted to change that and I read a few books on writing and right now I am working on doing all the preliminary work for a potential novel I'd like to write. I worked out the theme and the characters, I wrote up long character profiles and am now working on a detailed story-board with each scene mentioned in a little paragraph etc.
So far I feel both good and bad about it. The good parts are that it allows me a much better overview and it is easier to sort out ideas that don't work early on. (I would, e.g., have probably used third person p.o.v. if I had just started writing it, when I now realize that the first person first the story a lot better.)
On the other hand it does take a bit of the joy and the adventure away.
I was just wondering who of you uses all or some preliminary techniques? How do they work for you, what do you do? Do you use them for any story you write or just for 'serious' works that you intent to publish some day?
Thanks so much for all your help and ideas!
As so many of you I am also rather invested in writing - but I have been in a bit of a problematic patch for quite a while.
When i was younger I would just start writing, it would flow out of me and I loved and enjoyed it. Nowadays I think I have read so much theory and so many people have told me that I have talent and should earn money with this that I started over-thinking the whole process. And then again maybe not.
I remember that when I was jut writing into the blue - frequently I wouldn't actually finish the stories because I wrote myself into situations that didn't really make sense or didn't work or just completely stumped me.
I wanted to change that and I read a few books on writing and right now I am working on doing all the preliminary work for a potential novel I'd like to write. I worked out the theme and the characters, I wrote up long character profiles and am now working on a detailed story-board with each scene mentioned in a little paragraph etc.
So far I feel both good and bad about it. The good parts are that it allows me a much better overview and it is easier to sort out ideas that don't work early on. (I would, e.g., have probably used third person p.o.v. if I had just started writing it, when I now realize that the first person first the story a lot better.)
On the other hand it does take a bit of the joy and the adventure away.
I was just wondering who of you uses all or some preliminary techniques? How do they work for you, what do you do? Do you use them for any story you write or just for 'serious' works that you intent to publish some day?
Thanks so much for all your help and ideas!