First of all, let me begin this post by stating the obvious:
I am still experimenting to find my most efficient writing system. I have been writing for a long time, and have studied it for
years... but I still feel like I can do better. What I mean is... I still get
way bogged down by all that story.
I have heard a lot of other writers talking about how they “write in layers”,
and I thought that just wasn’t for me. I never was able to really do it.
I have been reading several different writer’s blogs over the last year, and
they all do things a little bit differently… but the one thing that they all
seem to agree on is layering… so, I’m finally giving it a try.
Wow. Where to start?
When I thought of writing in layers, I thought that I would be layering the
actual manuscript, (during the draft and composition phase), and that
just seemed too confusing to keep all that straight. A novel is a HUGE
undertaking, and to keep my notes and all the chapters straight is so
overwhelming that more days than not, I’m a tiny bit frazzled. (hence my
obsession with organizing. Some days, it felt like all I could do was shuffle things around!)
If I’m being honest here, I will tell you that most of the (many) novels that I’ve
started, were not finished because I simply got my plot lines “tangled up” (in
the words of the great Stephen King.) I was hopelessly ensnared in a web of
story that was too big for me to get my own head around and I simply wanted to
start fresh with my shiny new idea and forget about the wretched
thing!
So now that I have reached the dreaded point in my current WIP where I am, once again, getting my plot lines crossed... I tried something new (at least to me). I broke my plot lines down, as they are thus far… and ran through each thread top to
bottom, looking for weak spots. I did this one at a time.
Then, I broke it down by character. From each character’s POV, each plot
line… top to bottom… so far so good. I even saw a few neat new bits I could add
just looking from a different POV.
So this is what I’m trying…
I know my ending… I know what has happened thus far, and what needs to happen
'tomorrow'. I don’t have a
total story outline, so I am half outlining,
and half discovery writing. So to try writing in layers, I am using the daily
scene snapshots to log each days writing on a separate document, they fall
together just like an outline so that I can see them all in order, or if I need
to switch them around, and build off of them.
Grrr.
It still amazes me, how one day I feel like my WIP is going fantastic, and the next, I feel like I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing even after years of practice and study.
This is that part where writers tend to feel like they are "playing writer", I suppose. :)
I shall power through! Today I shall write 10k!!!
:)