How do you do it?

There’s a thread over at Lee Goldberg’s A Writer’s Life , “Writing Blind”, about how writers write their books. Concensus: we’re all different.

Some people swear by detailed outlines. Some people run like hell from outlines altogether. Example of a writer who goes by a detailed outline: Jonathan Kellerman. Example of a writer who sets up a premise and lets the characters go: Stephen King.

Don’t read anything into this, though, because everyone writes in a slightly different way, and the end result is the end result.

I’ll tell you how I go about it, although every book is different.

I come up with a premise, a locale, some characters, the likely killer, and a possible climax.

I try to deepen these things, usually by writing lists, working it out in my journal, talking to myself. But I am leery of letting the story “set” too much early on. I want the characters to have some say in the matter. That’s my instinct.

Then I start writing. I’ll map out several scenes, and try to follow that. I usually end up deviating in small ways and large. I keep looking at what I have as the pages build up behind me, and see what kind of sequences I’ve come up with.

A sequence is like this: man goes into a store, the store is being robbed, the man is winged but because he shoots back and kills the robber, the man is arrested, someone in the store insists he’s the robber, and now he’s in big trouble.

One thing leads to another, until the natural end of the sequence—which leads to the next sequence.

I’m always prepared for things to fall apart about a quarter of the way through (self-fulfilling prophecy?) and I rethink the way I ramp up to that section.

At the back of my mind, more twists and turns are coming. Usually another big part of the plot elbows its way into the book.

I try to keep writing, moving forward.

Pretty soon I’m supposed to come up with detailed outline. For the publisher. I avoid that until I have to.

I lie in my outline. Not big lies, but I just have to come up with something, and if I’m not sure, I say stuff I might not do. But a funny thing happens as I work on the outline, which becomes more and more anal-retentive. It finally starts to gel.

Then I start writing faster. When it’s really going right toward the end of the book, I forget completely about the ending I’ve mapped out and just follow my characters around each corner, finding out what is going to happen as I go along.

Although usually it’s pretty close to the outline.

After the first draft, I know I’ve dropped a lot of stitches, left undeveloped characters and even left whole scenes unwritten. Time to go back in and pull it together. Sometimes a new character shows up and changes the whole complexion of the story. Themes assert themselves.

Somehow it all comes together.

It changes every time. I want things to be random, and yet I want control of the material. This is as close as I can come.