IGX

An interesting quote from a master:

"I know there are writers who plot their stories in great detail before they begin to write them, but I am not one of that group. With me plots are not made; they grow. And if they refuse to grow, you throw the stuff away and start over again." Raymond Chandler, Letter to H.R. Harwood (2 July 1951), in Raymond Chandler Speaking 91, 92 (Dorothy Gardiner & Katherine Sorley Walker eds., 1962).
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All of the writers I know do it this way.

Elmore Leonard says that outlining your plot sounds a lot like writer's block to him.

Jack wrote:Pete, is this a book or some other instructional materials?

I get a daily e-mail tip on writing from Bryan Garner, author of Modern American Usage. At the end of each one, he includes a quotation. This one looks it comes from a collection of Chandler's letters.

If you like language, it's an interesting e-mail every day. You can sign up at http://www.lawprose.org/subscribe_tips.php

seeahill wrote:All of the writers I know do it this way.

Elmore Leonard says that outlining your plot sounds a lot like writer's block to him.

Then how do you teach a whole course in it? Most authors who I've heard talk about this talk about thinking through each of the characters and developing them fully, researching all the issues, geography, history, science. Plotting out the plot. Then start writing with full confidence, knowing that you know the whole story and that you tell what you want when you want.

I've never written fiction, but would like to someday. This quote from Chandler, who I love as an author, made me think I could give it a try.

Did you spend a lot of time playing by yourself as a child?

I write like Jackson Pollack painted

Hebrew Hammer wrote:

seeahill wrote:All of the writers I know do it this way.

Elmore Leonard says that outlining your plot sounds a lot like writer's block to him.

Then how do you teach a whole course in it? Most authors who I've heard talk about this talk about thinking through each of the characters and developing them fully, researching all the issues, geography, history, science. Plotting out the plot. Then start writing with full confidence, knowing that you know the whole story and that you tell what you want when you want.

I've never written fiction, but would like to someday. This quote from Chandler, who I love as an author, made me think I could give it a try.

Give me the names of some writers who plot out the plot. Here's a few a my pals who do not: Jim Harrison and Peter Bowen and Richard Wheeler (author of over 50 novels): they all live in my town. Also Carl Hiaasen who has a summer place here. James Lee Burke, who lives 250 miles away, in Missoula. I can name a dozen others I've met at literary festivals around the country. None of them plot out the plot.

They take a few characters they might want to write about, create a situation and start writing. Which is not to say you don't research. You research like a bastard. If decide you want to write about a bail bondsman, you better know how the business works and have some good inside stories, info.

But you just start writing.

I sometimes teach literary non-fiction, and caution my students not to outline. I suggest they start with a scene they want to write, and write that first. As they write, ideas for the next scene develop in the mind. This development seems to come out of nowhere. It's what's called being creative. Maybe you didn't even know these ideas connected before you sat down to write.

Over plotting is a good way to kill creativity.

So, your question was: how do you teach it? Well, it's mostly taught in "workshops." People write every week, the pages are read and critiqued. There are a lot of tricks I can teach aspiring writers: how to break the story down into elements that can be analyzed, how to capture the reader's interest, how to write good dialogue. All that.

But plot development usually comes out of the writing process itself. The workshop system is an external bullshit detector. If the plot turn doesn't work or seems contrived, the workshop group lets the writer know.

I expect the student to leave my group with a new internal bullshit detector.

Very interesting. I've written a number of articles on legal writing, and I'm now working on a book. A great approach has been described as "madman, architect, carpenter, judge." The notion is to start not by outlining every point and to aim for a solid first draft, but instead to write like a madman and to try to put down all your ideas and arguments in a jumbled spree or even a brainstorm diagram. Then to be the architect and organize it. Then to be the carpenter and carefully construct it. Then to be the judge and edit for clarity and power.

I've always wanted to try my hand at fiction, but the notion of developing characters, sorting out plot, doing research, has made it one of those ideas that I'd do later, when I have lots of time. The notion of madman writing for fiction is inviting.

Hebrew Hammer wrote:Very interesting. I've written a number of articles on legal writing, and I'm now working on a book. A great approach has been described as "madman, architect, carpenter, judge."

Sounds cool.

For research thesis writing, the hard part is to come up with a good research topic. Students will typically say, "I need to write a thesis," which really means, "give me a good idea for a topic."

The analogy I give is to take some innocuous problem, and just look for a loose thread and start pulling on it. Just keep asking "but what happens next?" or "what does this connect to?" until you get to the point where there's no obvious answer, and set up camp there. Then start digging down to first principles, tossing out the extraneous stuff until you're left with this little nugget of a problem that you can crack.

Once they've gotten that far, I tell them to write something every single day. At least a sentence. If they don't have a clever idea or calculation, then just do lit review. But do something. And show it to me weekly. I think that falls into your "madman" phase.

What do you teach?

Here's another suggestion I use with people writing articles or briefs. Take the major arguments and points of whatever you're reading. Write "This is wrong for the following reasons:" Then write like a madman. Pretty soon you begin to see weaknesses, areas to explore, and areas not worth exploring.

Hmm. The madman, architect, carpenter, and judge approach is pretty much the way I work, though I've never heard it described that way. The way I think of it is: vomit, structure, polish.

Hebrew Hammer wrote:What do you teach?

Engineering