I had better come clean and admit that I have no idea what my characters are going to think or say or even do next. Certainly I don't know what I'll write tomorrow, and often I don't even know what's going to happen in the next sentence.
Unless I'm on a roll, that elusive-as-spidersilk moment when all friction vanishes and I forget I'm typing, and I've disappeared completely and just living the story.
When that happens I don't even know that I don't know what happens next.
This is one reason I look forward to these morning writing sessions: I get to find out what happens next! It's the closest thing to reading I can imagine -- thinking overnight about the characters and their problems, wondering how they'll react or what they'll say.
I have a rough idea of the story, a few images I want to be sure to capture, and an overall feeling for the emotional arc. I know where we're going but I don't know how we're getting there -- the characters and me -- until I read it on the page.
So who is doing the writing? Is it Scary Me, who sleeps all day and paces the hallways at night, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, wringing his long-fingered hands and muttering story ideas? A muse? Creepy Possessed Hand?
All I know is that I sit down and get to work. And when I work, it sometimes -- sometimes -- works too.
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2 comments:
Funny, I just wrote about this same thing today. I am less brave than you, and my characters less forthcoming with ideas of their own! I like the idea of "Scary You" and Creepy Possessed Hands. Very funny!
When it's working, it doesn't feel like 'writing' so much as just watching the story unfold and taking notes as fast as I can. This is all too rare!
When it's not working it feels like the characters are sulking and refusing to do anything, or think anything, and everything slows to a crawl.
But either way I feel a curious detachment from it. Strange!
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