I'm a bit like Nan. I often start with a problem which needs to be solved, or a little voice inside me which says 'what if...'. The source of these problems and voices varies from story to story so I won't bore you with a long list.
Once the little voice has spoken or the problem has jumped into my head, I'll usually receive a scene which fits somewhere into the general concept. Often it's the opening scene. A character might also make himself known to me - again, don't ask me where he comes from, he just does
.
Once I'm cooking with the concept, a scene or two, and maybe a character, the rest of the story starts to develop itself. I start writing, and when I've got up a head of steam, I'll often sketch out an outline for the rest of the story. More scenes will come to me when I'm sketching the outline, and, like Lynn and others, I'll often skip ahead and write some of the more juicy scenes - especially if I've got stuck.
Usually, I find I start slowing down at around the one-third to half-way mark, and that's when the sketch comes into its own. If I'm completely stuck, I can pick another point in the story to write from, confident that whatever I write will fit into the rest of the story. That's the theory, anyway.
CC, to answer your question about feeling and seeing our characters, I'd say that usually I can see them and can hear what they're saying. I'm not so good at feeling their feelings - I have to work at that one a lot. This means I sometimes write dialogue without fully understanding the motivation behind my character's words. I guess that means I tend to work on instinct rather than analysing the effect one character's words and actions will have on another.
The result is that I often write dialogue and then go back and add their thoughts - and very often I add thoughts in order to create a natural rhythm in my dialogue. For example, I'd much rather write an action or a thought than just write 'He paused'. Dialogue rhythm is also why I don't tend to write long introspection passages within conversations. I'd rather keep the long thinking sessions to those times when my characters are alone (or just not talking to each other <g>).
Finally, CC, I'd kill to have your skill in writing lean, sparse text that packs a punch, so don't try too hard to become flowery and description-intensive <bg>.
Yvonne
Yvonne
