I was looking at this What’s Your Writing Style questionaire over at a blog I just discovered and decided I’d post my own answers here. Sometimes it’s interesting to step back and to think about your own process. So, here are my answers to this writing style questionaire:
1. Are you a “pantser” or a “plotter?”
I’m more of a pantser, though I do have some organization in the form of a short personal synopsis (short means a paragraph or two). I tend to start a story with a scene. I’ll imagine a few characters and a situation and I start writing based on that. Eventually I stop and look at what I have and figure out what I think is going to be the main story. I write out a one paragraph description, my personal synopsis which summarizes the characters and the main conflict. It does not include the ending. Later I add to this synopsis, making it more detailed and expanding it to include a possible ending. More details on this process of mine can be found here.
2. Detailed character sketches or “their character will be revealed to me as a I write”?
I never write detailed character sketches. The characters exist in my head and they exist in the story. The way the characters react to story events is what defines their characters to me, so it’s in writing about them that I figure them out.
3. Do you know your characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts before you start writing or is that something else you discover only after you start writing?
I know their original conflicts in the scene I begin to write to start the story and then, as mentioned above, I figure out their main story goals and conflicts very quickly. So yes, I know what my characters want and what is keeping them from getting it before I write the story. If I don’t know that, I don’t think I have a story to write.
4. Books on plotting – useful or harmful?
Useful if you look at them as just one writer’s perspective and not as something written in stone. Look to them as general guidelines and advice that might be worth a shot, but not as strict rules. I really enjoyed James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure, for example. It helped me understand how different parts of a story can connect to make a coherent whole.
5. Are you a procrastinator or does the itch to write keep at you until you sit down and work?
Can I say both? It really depends on how I’m feeling. I’m a procrastinator on most things but if I give in to the urge to procrastinate I tend to feel antsy and not quite content. If I make myself sit down and write I feel better right away.
6. Do you write in short bursts of creative energy, or can you sit down and write for hours at a time?
Definitely short bursts. I have trouble focusing for longer than an hour at a time. So I write for an hour, then take a break and write some more later. During the break I’m usually thinking about the story, though, and trying to figure out what I’m going to write next.
7. Are you a morning or afternoon writer?
Neither. I write both in the morning and at night. It’s quiet and I can focus more than in the afternoon.
8. Do you write with music/the noise of children/in a cafe or other public setting, or do you need complete silence to concentrate?
I always write when I’m alone if I can. I like to write outside but that depends on the weather. I write either with silence or listening to music (depends on my mood and where I am). What kind of music do I listen to? Jazz or classical, mostly. Occasionally rock. Miles Davis is a favorite.
9. Computer or longhand? (or typewriter?)
Always computer. I started writing when I was five and if you looked at my handwriting you’d think I still was! I can’t keep up with my thoughts writing longhand so I always type.
10. Do you know the ending before you type Chapter One?
No. I don’t want to. Call me selfish but I want the same thrill the reader will get when they reach a certain point and finally see where the story’s going.
11. Does what’s selling in the market influence how and what you write?
No. In order to write something well I think you have to feel passionate about it and not just write to trends that are constantly changing. I also think that great stories will always find an audience. For instance, horror supposedly doesn’t sell well in general but some of the best, such as Stephen King, sell incredibly well and appeal to such a wide audience that they cross genre lines to gather major fans who don’t even touch anything else in the genre. Not that I’m Stephen King.
12. Editing – love it or hate it?
I love the end result of knowing I’ve created a better story. I hate trying to figure out how to make difficult changes (the second chapter of my novel needs revisions but I’m having trouble figuring out how to make the changes without taking away other elements that I like). I love knowing I was able to find my mistakes, but I hate that there were mistakes in the first place. Editing and I have a love/hate relationship.
So, what’s your writing style?
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