Unexpected Story Line Developments

Why is my story writing itself?!

Before I get into what is happening, please remember, I don't consider myself to be even as high as an amateur author. I'm trying to fill my "extended vacation" time with an activity that enables me to enjoy living inside a world of make-believe. So for those people who are as introverted as I am and are terrified of joining groups or even socializing, I wanted to do an experiment. How possible is it for somebody to write and publish a decent novel largely on their own and is it possible to make a little bit of gas money on the side?

After having planned my main plot I figured the trilogy would write itself -- and that it did. As I began writing, I realized that many times the characters would develop themselves, contrary to what I had originally planned. It was largely surprising as I watched the characters take on the plot in their own ways. Each day as I spend my time writing, I would come out surprised at the way the events would turn out. Usually this was a good surprise, but occasionally I would end up writing myself into a corner.

Sometimes, in order to ensure that the story was staying on track and there weren't too many plot twists, I would go back and rewrite things. Other times, I would leave things the way they were. I would notice that characters who I had previously introduced as minor secondary characters could easily become primary characters, which added nice little plot twists.

What has surprised me most has been how well the story develops when a decent amount of pre-planning is done before delving into the meat of the story. I got a lot of help from using the snowflake method, by Randy Ingermanso. Basically, you start by writing out your main plot in a sentence or two. Then you expand that short description into a paragraph. Then write a longer description of each of the main characters and so on. It definitely helped to solidify the foundation of the story. I suggested heading over to that site to read up on the method.

So, after I finished the first draft of The Connected: Origin of the Sleepers and sent it off for editing, I began envisioning how the second part of the trilogy would fit into the overall plot. In one week, I came up with the outline and began writing, reaching about eight thousand words. I was quite excited at the pace.

Then I hit a wall. I wrote myself into a dead end. I know where I want the story to go and I like how the story is laid out up to this point, but now I've had to take time to really think if what I've written and how I want the story to develop is actually worth this brief period of writer's block, or should I slowly move backwards and find a point to begin rewriting.

I'm not going to spend too much time blogging about things, but it has been nice to take some time to clear my mind in an attempt to approach the story from a fresh perspective.

Time to get back to writing!