Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

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  • Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

    I've just completed a new spec and something unusual happened as I was writing. I'd done a solid outline, including main points for scenes, and had pegged in a character that didn't even have a name.

    She's the mother of the main secondary character and I needed her referred to in passing in the story. She was never meant to be anything, but as I worked through the first draft, I decided she needed a name. After the name, she needed a scene, and after that first scene, she needed more scenes.

    By the time I finished the first draft, she ended up as the main storyline in the subplot. I don't think this would have happened if I hadn't given her a name, but now I can't imagine what the story would be without her.

    There's a lot of talk about outlines vs. discovery. I'm never wedded to my outlines -- they're like a ticket that gets me into the world of writing the story, but I think if I'd been just a tiny bit more obedient to my outline, I might have missed the third most important character in my script.

    I was wondering how others here have been surprised by discoveries in the writing process.

  • #2
    Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

    This is the sublimely errant joy of it all, for me. The process of discovery. Christ, talk about adventure. I used to travel a lot -- like, half-the-year a lot -- and now that I've put my writing front and center in my life it just pales in comparison.

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    • #3
      Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

      The first mental mapping of your story, whether it be in outline or script form, will essentially be made up of the 'first things that came to you'. The first twist and turns that come to you will be the first things that come in the mind of a reader. You have to get past those first events and uncover the scenes you never saw coming. Because scenes you never saw coming, the reader will not see coming either. If you don't surprise yourself, how can you surprise the reader?

      I am currently doing a 5th pass through a script idea that is over ten years old. This time through the script light bulbs started going off. New plot movements were coming through. A new plot complication surfaced. The subtext that subplots were to hold came crystal clear to me. I totally rewrote the 2nd and 3rd acts with all this new material in mind. The 3rd act pays off seven different plot movements before we actually get to the climax, and I came up with a way to twist the original twist ending.

      All because I finally cracked through to the material I never knew was there.

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      • #4
        Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

        Oh, and another note on surprises and discoveries. I came across this quote from Picasso at one point -- I can't remember it verbatim -- but he talked about painting an ocean scene, and got all the way to the bottom (of the sea/canvas) and painted a gold fish, and he said it wasn't until he got to the fish that he realized that that was what the painting was about. I love that. I think about it all the time.

        For better or for worse, I'm not a huge planner before I set out to write. Discovery can be intoxicating (for me it can, at least) but the risk is that you could end up with an awkward, asymmetrical structure. (I once saw an episode of the Three Stooges where they built a house for their three brides. The doors were hanging upside down, staircases led into the fireplace, toilets were on the roof, etc. I think about that cautionary image a lot, too (insert weeping Shemp emoticon here).)

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        • #5
          Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

          Originally posted by jcpdoc View Post
          I was wondering how others here have been surprised by discoveries in the writing process.

          All the time. That, to me, is one of the great joys of creating story. Finding something better than you planned because as you write it, it just makes more sense to go there and takes your story to a higher level. I've had minor characters bloom into major characters more than once and other characters I thought important fade away and disappear. It's all part of letting your story naturally go where it wants sometimes as you write it. Yes, you still need an outline, but you also need to be able to recognize those moments when you need to shove it aside as your story unfolds and you discover something new and better.

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          • #6
            Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

            Cool comments sixridgeroad and Cyfress. "The sublimely errant joy of it all." That's a great way to put it. It's such a wild, trippy experience, but it seems like one you can't get to until something else has happened first. I'm not sure how to articulate what that something is, but I have an inkling that it has to do with working, toiling, or even just getting lucky enough to create something that has an objective quality to it; something that is mysteriously somehow no longer purely the writer's subjectivity.

            I guess what I'm getting at here is that for me, I feel like these discoveries aren't so much discoveries of my mind, but that they're somehow, at least partially, discoveries about the object. I invent the idea and first drafts, but I don't feel I invent those surprises; I discover them, because somehow, again mysteriously, they are contained in the objective thing the script has become.

            It reminds me of certain "discoveries" in mathematics. I wouldn't pretend to know what it's like to have a mathematical mind capable of discovering a sequence or theorem, but I do know that the discovery is the discovery of something already existing in the fabric of mathematical reality. When we write, we create the fabric of the reality of the world we've invented, and then we find that the world contains things we didn't intentionally create. Things that are hiding, like mathematical sequences, beneath the surface. It makes me feel a little bit insane sometimes...

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            • #7
              Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

              Right, jpc, the sudden bizarre intuition that what you're writing actually already exists, and you're slowly but surely uncovering it. And yeah, it's a reward of sorts that will never come without the mind-blowing toil. Sweet n sour Jesus, so much toil. Ow. Ow that toil burns. Having said that, at one recent moment in the trenches I asked myself, "Well, if you could wave a wand and have it all come easily -- write Sunset Boulevard in one afternoon -- would you?" And I immediately answered myself with "Oh hell no, where's the glory in that?"

              I was telling someone recently how many blind alleys and dead ends I go down when I'm exploring the world of a script, and she said "That sounds awful."

              I let it go and changed the subject.

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              • #8
                Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

                Welcome to writing.

                Surprise yourself.

                You can't stay ahead of your audience if you're not ahead of yourself.

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                • #9
                  Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

                  Personally, I think "discoveries" is all part of the process when you sit down and write. I'm not a great believer of "writer's block" and see it as more of a fear or excuse from doing the hard work of actually writing.

                  Sure, I get inspired moments during long procrastination breaks, but personally I find most of my discoveries and "ah ha" moments coming to me when I force my ass down and try to figure things out on the page.

                  You have to immerse yourself into the world you're creating and hear the voices of your characters. It's a similar process to what actors do when they try to lose themselves in a fictional moment. It's a mentally exhausting process and can be a challenge to get there, but when you zone out, you find yourself becoming a transcriber of unfolding events.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

                    That's part of the reason why I don't extensively outline. For me the first draft of a script is basically an outline. Draft by draft brainwaves hit that change the story. The way I see it the finished product is always hidden somewhere, just need to solve the jigsaw to see it.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

                      I do a ton of automatic writing (or surrealist automatism) for short stories. Just write whatever crazy story comes to my head without thinking. Works great.

                      For a script, or any kind of long story, this can get you into trouble. I think you need to make sure you stay focused and true to your main idea. I have a couple of scripts now that are great in parts, and piece to piece make sense, but there's something lacking in the overall story. Something in the macro that I hadn't considered in the micro. Now I'm not sure how to fix them.

                      This experience, however, has taught me how to balance the two and I'm now writing the greatest script of my life. Fun little parts with a great overall story.

                      So, long story short, balance! and knowing when to do what at the right time.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

                        Originally posted by Mossbraker View Post
                        I do a ton of automatic writing (or surrealist automatism) for short stories. Just write whatever crazy story comes to my head without thinking. Works great.
                        I did some of that, but I discovered my inner genius is an infantile cretin obsessed with poo, weenies and characters incessantly screaming at others. Also, he always wants to do SF and I have no interest in writing SF.

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                        • #13
                          Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

                          My favorite (and least favorite) moment of writing a draft is when I discover that my initial theme of the script was wrong.

                          Then I go back to page 1 and start over. But that illumination helps my story a lot.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

                            Originally posted by Hamboogul View Post
                            My favorite (and least favorite) moment of writing a draft is when I discover that my initial theme of the script was wrong.

                            Then I go back to page 1 and start over. But that illumination helps my story a lot.
                            http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ellyOfTheWhale

                            This, as denoted in The Hero With A Thousand Faces, is the conclusion of the Initiation, the first phase of The Hero's Journey: "The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died." There is no turning back from this point. This is The Hero's point of no return where he resigns himself to the difficult task ahead. Forward march to the Road Of Trials!
                            If you really like it you can have the rights
                            It could make a million for you overnight

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                            • #15
                              Re: Surprises/discoveries while you're writing

                              Originally posted by jcpdoc View Post
                              I was wondering how others here have been surprised by discoveries in the writing process.
                              Cool. Yep, this has happened to me quite a few times. My characters just can't do what they were supposed to do when it comes time to do it.
                              STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I'm a wannabe, take whatever I write with a huge grain of salt.

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