my writing process is maybe not the most coherent

[bedlamsbard]

This whole thing I'm doing right now where I write out of order is freaky. Normally I don't write out of order, you see: I write one chapter, then the next one. The closest I get to writing out of order is that I'll start a chapter, then put it aside and come back to finish it later on because it's not working out for one reason or another. Sometimes I write another chapter or two in between. (I almost never fully delete anything, so I have half-begun bits of chapters and cut scenes stored neatly away in various files on my computer. I think that I have at least one completed chapter that I cut, but I'm not positive. Er, but I guess that's neither here nor there.)

Right now I'm doing a thing where I'm writing several chapters in advance on certain plot lines in Dust, partially because I wanted to get some stuff on the page while I was thinking about it, since one of the problems with Dust is that there's a very real possibility that I can forget plots, subplots, characters, themes, and so on since it's been a WIP for so long. (...no comment.) And a lot of the time I come up with something I think is awesome that should go in, and then usually what happens is I tweet snacky and go SNACKY SNACKY SNACKY I HAVE A GREAT IDEA and then take it to e-mail, and then I forget it ever happened because it's not immediately applicable and it just straight-on slides out of my brain to be replaced with random Tolkien trivia and utterly useless facts about the Roman Empire -- wait, that's a lie, I never retain any facts about Rome. The Tolkien trivia sticks, though. (I used to keep a list of things I wanted to put in Dust, and then I kind of, uh, forgot. Yeah. No comment. Wow, no wonder I keep forgetting my deadlines.) So in this case I had something that was almost immediately applicable, plus worked into my FEELS for a completely different fandom (what, normal fans don't sublimate all their emotional reactions to one fandom into another one? nobody answer that), and as a result I kinda, sorta, wrote several chapters backwards of when they'll actually appear in the story.

This is complicated by the fact that this is two plot lines out of four, which means I've got the two I haven't been writing to deal with as well, and since we're endgame in Dust II, I'm trying to juggle all four plot lines so that they close at the right point. ("Endgame" at this point probably means about 8-10 more chapters and wow, I just realized that at a minimum of 5K per chapter -- which is not my minimum for a chapter wordcount, by the way -- that's somewhere around 50K. Well, that's just wrong.) Not to mention set up for Dust III, eek.

And if you made it through that, here is a bit from the chapter I am working on right now. Nested cut on DW, in theory, not sure how it will show on LJ.

“I said I set them free,” Edmund says, and looks at the blood on his left hand. “Not that they left.”

Confesor actually flinches back, his gaze darting rapidly around as if he expects spirits to close in around them.

“Don’t worry,” Edmund says, failing to resist the urge to smile. “If they were going to come without being called, they would have by now.”

“I should have stayed in Cair Paravel,” Confesor mutters. He scrubs his filthy hands uselessly across his thighs.

“But we’re having so much fun,” Edmund says, and grins at the murderous look the other man shoots him.

“You’re a bastard,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Many, many times,” Edmund says. “Though fortunately never my mother.” He looks up at another shout from over the hill. The throne room is too distant for him to make out words, but the tone is audible: anger, hatred, cruelty. None of that belongs in Narnia, let alone here in Cair Paravel. Not directed at Narnians by strangers. He clenches his hand into a fist, reminding himself that there’s very little likelihood that there will be anything he can do for the Narnians in the chain-gang. He’ll go and see, he has to, it’s his duty, but there’s little chance he can do anything. Maybe if the Cair wasn’t on an island now – but maybes don’t get him anything, and they certainly don’t help the Narnians on the island.

I guess the funny thing is that I thought I was writing several chapters in advance (not to mention out of order) when I was writing, and now there's a possibility that I might actually drop the two current chapters in progress next, as soon as they're done and beta'ed. Which would mean I'm not writing out of order -- but on the other hand, we might have to see, given plotting concerns.

Comments

[autumnia]

I've toyed with the idea of writing chapters out of order and the nearest I've gotten to that have been with scenes and long conversations that were the basis of why I wanted to write a story. I don't think I've gotten to writing whole chapters like you but hey, it's always best to write things down when inspiration hits (especially during long writing blocks).

Besides, your future chapters may appear out of order for now but then turn out to actually work. :-)

And that Edmund/Elizar scene is such a tease! But in a good way... at least the two of them are still alive in the castle. And it sounds like the spirits that appeared in The Bone's Prayer might show up again, which would be kind of awesome. Too bad they can't come and help Edmund scare away the Calormenes and their associates on the island.

[bedlamsbard]

In the past when I've written out of order, it's never really stuck or worked for me, and it's not something I particularly like doing. I have a strong suspicion that the only reason that it's working out here is because the four plot threads are so separate that I don't have to worry terribly much about one affecting the others, at least at this point -- normally in the past where I've written out-of-order, once I've written the candy-bar scenes, I don't want to go back and write the build-up! (I don't remember who called them candy-bar scenes -- the scenes that you're really looking forwards to writing, the reward type scenes, rather than the build-up. For me it's normally fight scene, heh.)

[lady_songsmith]

I've always written out-of-order, which is why I like Scrivener now -- beats the hell out of long word docs with gaps and ** all over, or lots of tiny files in a folder that you try to keep numbered or something. Both of which I've done in the past. But I find that the further out I go, the more likely I am to need to rewrite when I get there, so these days I do try to stick to an orderly progression, to avoid double work. I think you definitely do need to go where the inspiration is, though!!

[bedlamsbard]

I keep each chapter in a separate Word doc, with master docs for Dust and Dust II that I only update after I've posted a chapter. My chapters all have names like -- well, the current ones are "interlude 2.4 a.k.a dwarves dwarves dwarves", "dust 34 (ish) a.k.a. wtf and also an aggravation of dwarves", and "dust 33 (ish) a.k.a. now with hot dwarves."

...I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that you might be able to guess what my inspiration is. *cough* The subtitles help keep the chapters straight, especially since sometimes I have multiple versions of numbered chapters. (My favorite is still Dust 29, though: "run away run away and tell someone," although snacky calls it the chapter of the bad touch. Oh, I've also got one called "finally someone gets laid," though most have more descriptive titles like "jill in anvard" and "the vale of the white bear." And a cut chapter called "cattle rustling for fun and profit.")

I think the only reason that I'm able to write out of order right now is because my plot threads are so disconnected -- at this point, they're not interacting with each other, so I mostly only have to keep each one straight. Although I did cut out in the middle of the upcoming Jill chapter once I'd gotten the dwarves in, since the second half of that chapter is going to build on something I haven't written yet.

[snacky]

Because it IS the chapter of the bad touch. :D

[bedlamsbard]

I can always see if I can make any upcoming chapters even MORE bad touch! ...although come to think of it, with the totally-not-tentacle-sex thing going on in this chapter, this one might be it.