Ugh. Why am I so stuck? I feel like there is some invisible wall in front of me. Fear maybe?

Well, yes. Isn't that how everyone does it?

I've done that! It does make the writing of the book more enjoyable....until you have to get to the job of writing the linking scenes.

Anne

There are no hard and fast rules as far as I'm concerned. I think the key when making a big change to your novel is saving an older version just in the this new path ends up being a dead end.

I'm a linear writer. For me, each completed scene shapes the "reality" (or canon, to use a fanfic term) the next is based on so I find myself reluctant to write scenes out of order because I don't yet have the foundation for the later scene.

More than that, however, the big scenes are a kind of emotional payoff, and I've found that if I write those first (ignoring the foundation issue above and assuming I can fix them in rewrite), then I've already gotten the reward and I lose most of my motivation to write the scenes leading up to that one. Outlining in too much detail triggers this as well, and turns the writing into a chore rather than an emotional journey.

Aerial

If you figure out your main story goals, plot points, climax, and ending first, then you can avoid a lot of wasted time and effort.

I, also, write linearly. I've tried writing the exciting, fun scenes first, and I never finished those novels. Now, I've found that I'm able to create more tension as I move towards those big scenes because I'm excited to write them. Also, I don't think you'll ever get the scene quite right without knowing what comes before it, which results in a lot of needed revision. Ultimately, however, you should write in the way that works best for you. There is no one way that works best for everyone

You're stuck because writing is hard. Relax, take a breath, sit in the goddamned chair and keep doing it.

yippee! you finished a 58K draft. Some people never do that even once, so first jump up and down, pat yourself on the back, and remind yourself how wonderful you are.

It's pretty intimidating to do that and then think "oops, and almost none of that is salvageable." Give yourself a week more to keep plotting, is my advice, and doing background character work. Is there some bit of research you need to do? That's still working but it also is a mental breather before leaping back in to a new first draft.

While I'm a plotter, enough detail changes as I write that it's not efficient for me to actually write all the prose of a later scene. I'll write a couple clever lines I think I'll use. I'll write a 500 word summary of it, but when I get there, that may or may not be the scene I actually write. I prefer writing in order. YMMV.

Once that first draft is finished, it's far easier to write the rest and edit in a non-linear way. I've had stories come unglued before, prove to be far more than I thought they were at first. No big deal. Just keep writing it, and like mentioned earlier, save a draft of the original before you go all tinkery on it.

I write in order because looking forward to the big schemes motivates me.

Bartholomew said:

You're stuck because writing is hard. Relax, take a breath, sit in the goddamned chair and keep doing it.

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Right on.

I just sit down and write scene after scene until my story is completed. I don't know what writing scenes out of order would accomplish, except having all these scenes that are out of order. In revision, I've added in a scene that made more sense, and even cut scenes, but not intentionally written anything out of order. For me, it's just to work moving forward.

For my first draft I don't write scenes in order at all. I don't just write the major emotional scenes first-- I write the scene I feel compelled to write at that point, which can mean all kinds of things. I made my first draft by doing that and then filling in the scenes in between (though certainly not thinking of them as filler!). In rewrites I've worked mostly in order but not always. Like you I only made a scene by scene outline after I'd written a first draft, but it was a helpful framework for when I wanted to write a scene that was 'ahead' without having to rewrite it all again when I got there. If I felt compelled to write completely in order, I'd feel totally blocked too, I can't do that.

We all write differently-- if you feel excited about the prospect of writing certain scenes, write those scenes!

And absolutely congratulations on your first draft! That really is an accomplishment!

lorna_w said:

yippee! you finished a 58K draft. Some people never do that even once, so first jump up and down, pat yourself on the back, and remind yourself how wonderful you are.

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This. You've scored a major victory, but now the gremlins are mad and they are gunning for you. You Can Handle Them.

Give yourself a week more to keep plotting, is my advice, and doing background character work.

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Also this. Think about those linking scenes...can you add conflict to them? Maybe play with some of the thinner characters and fatten them up. Try to make more of the scenes "big" ones.

Also..how long has it been since you finished the draft? The MS might need more drawer time.

I'm sure many do just that, but I don't. No way do I want to attempt piecing a novel together in that way. Just thinking about it makes my brain bleed.

That's what I do. But make sure you have at least a rough outline. I tried to do that without an outline once and it was a big mess and ugh.

Basically I just write whatever scene I'm interested in, and once I've crossed off each chapter on my little binder-paper outline I copy/paste them all in order and start the "next step." This process ends up taking a little longer than it would if I had them in chronological order to begin with because sometimes chapters don't transition well and I have to fix that, etc. But it still works (for me anyway.)




-t.

I also write in order. Just an orderly kind of person, I guess! I'm working on my 4th novel, and I have found that my outline gets more and more detailed each time. My first novel didn't know where it was going, and so it went... nowhere. After so many tries, I'm finally realizing that I need a detailed plan at the start to take away some of the pressure.
Good luck!

I write in order because it would get too crazy (for me) to do it otherwise. However, if I get a brainflash moment where it's like hey, that's perfect for a scene x-number of chapters or scenes ahead, I'll get out my outline and make some notes. Then when I get to that same spot writing linearly, I'll see if it still works. More often than not, I've almost unconsciously set up the previous writing to have a bigger impact when that scene comes up because I knew what was coming, meanwhile I surreptitiously dropped breadcrumb clues for the reader as I wrote toward that scene. So I guess what I actually do is write in order, but think out of order... Hmm...

I love to write out of order. That way the scenes that are just itching to be written get done, and I can fill in the spots between them later. It keeps me really engaged in the work. That said, I do attempt to keep from jumping willy-nilly all the time. If nothing is demanding to be written down, it's scene by scene chronologically.

The one real drawback I have doing it this way is that I have to rework some of those out of order scenes later. Things sometimes change from how I thought they'd go, so the out of order stuff ends up with parts that no longer work. But that's okay--I'm kind of a continuity freak with movies, so I just turn that on my writing to clean up the mess.

veinglory said:

I write in order because looking forward to the big schemes motivates me.

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Saaayyy. That's a good idea. I jump around and write scenes out of order, but you've just made a good case for the linear method.

But I always write my first and last scenes before doing anything else.

Liz's Dad said:

But if I do that, I'll have to force what I write to fit what I've written, and if I then find things are developing in a different direction, I'll have to scrap the previously written scenes, which is too painful to contemplate.

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Painful, yes. It's also part of the writing process. If you dodge this painful part, another will spring up in its place.

And don't scrap. Save. Put it in a scrap file. You can always use it later. The thought of deleting anything I've written gives me hives. So I CnP into a doc and tuck it away into a file I've called Boneyard. It's saved and now it leaves me free to prune away!

Also...you do have an original copy of your MS in the event you don't like the editing that you're doing and need to revert, right?

Liz's Dad said:

Absolutely! I'd be most unwise not to - it's quick and easy, and CDs aren't expensive. I keep a copy of every draft of everything I've written, on my hard drive, on CD and on a plug-in hard drive, just in case.

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Whew!

I hope I didn't offend by asking but I'm always surprised by people who do their drafts in their only document and don't have a clean copy of their original. Makes my heart seize in my chest, it does!