This is not a post about dancing. It’s about following the character in a story as the story develops. I know I’m the writer so I’m really the leader but right now I’m following the lead of the protagonist as she starts the story and sets up the situation from her point-of-view.
I guess I should backtrack a bit.
A writer friend asked me about my process; and I honestly didn’t know what to say to her. For weeks I’ve been playing with a complicated and serious idea for what I thought might be a novel (but could also become a shorter piece of fiction). The idea was percolating. The character was unformed. But I knew that at a certain point I’d just sit down and start writing. No outline crafting the trajectory of the plot. No character sketch with a bio to guide me. I just needed to be ready to jump out of the plane with the certainty that a parachute would open before I hit the ground and landed on an empty page.
My friend was looking for my thoughts on ‘unblocking’ writer’s block and all I could say is ‘just write.’ I took my own advice and, that night; and I started writing. Then the character took over. Since then, I’ve been enjoying following the protagonist as she opens the story. I’m not crazy. The character is not writing the story I AM, but…
A first draft is a messy thing. It’s intoxicated on inspiration and darts off in different directions. So far, the character has presented a much lighter, happier voice than my original concept. There’s a touch of dry humor lurking in the corner of everything she says, but she does not take herself too seriously. This character invites a breezier vocabulary and a sunnier world view then I thought would work for a plot centered around a trial.
She is not the dark center of a fraught world. She’s the quizzical observer of an absurdist situation, slowly learning that there is serious darkness hiding just out of sight. Are the sweet or funny characters as benign as they appear to be? Not ALL of them, but…I’m still working on who’s who. For now, I’m following where the character leads me.
OH MY GOD!!!!! Yes! That’s exactly how I write too, Candy. I have to start plotting, or at least trying to, in the ‘middle’, but the bottomline is always ‘how would XX react/feel/act in a given situation?’ I think we both start with motivation and then pit it against an external situation.
You’re right about ‘messy’ too. lol But we write the way we /have/ to write. -shrug-
I’m so glad you’re writing again. Does this mean you’ve recovered from Covid? Are you ok now?
We are classic “pantsers” hahahaha… I’m almost sure about certain turns in the plot (almost is the operative word) and the rest is still percolating. So I’m letting the character take me down HER rabbit holes until we figure it out together. It’s very messy! Like playing in the mud.
As for my Covid adventure, I’m FINE. Full and completely fine. Glad I was fully vaccinated AND boosted, as that seems to be the recipe for a shorter duration and a more tolerable experience. I’m also lucky in not having any underlying conditions. The re-awakening of New York City is working best for the healthy/fully vaccinated and is not a great invitation for my friends with compromised immune systems.