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Sunday 4 March 2018

Do you plan before you write - or just write?



Always a subject of debate among writers: do you plan out your work first? Do you lay out a structure so you have a road map, a route to your destination? Or are you more impulsive, let your fingers move over the keyboard and let them take your story to wherever it is meant to go?

I find a bit of planning helps me out. If nothing else, since I tend to write in short spurts as and when I get time to and in a race before deadlines, just to jot down a few bullet points at the start of a piece helps me to focus my thoughts. It helps to outline the angle of entry, the pathway through the theme, the sequence of events and drives me towards the conclusion, which, if all goes well, is a natural summing up of what went before in non-fiction and a tying of loose ends, a resolution, in fiction.

The extent of planning is influenced in part by how complex the piece you are trying to produce. A thoroughly researched piece of political history, a detailed biography of a famous figure, a complex crime thriller are each likely to need a thorough road map much more than a short story with a small cast of characters and a single theme plot. Then again, preferring to plan or not plan, and the extent of details in your plans can be influenced just as much by your personality as by the requirements of what you are trying to write.




I am, in collaboration with another writer, very slowly working my way through a non-fiction book. We began our work with some basic reading around the subject and then discussed an outline of what we wanted the book to be about. From this, we put together a basic plan. This has been reviewed a number of times, reworked and refocused as the research threw up information that we wanted to integrate, and identified irrelevant details that we decided to throw out. As we write, the plan is modified, but essentially it has helped us to focus and to organise what is a vast amount of information that we could have got lost in for years without ever typing a word.

For me, this approach works quite well with non-fiction. Even when I write short articles for magazines, a very basic plan helps me to organise my thinking. 




It works quite well with creative writing too. I remember from decades ago, our English teacher recommending writing a rough plan in pencil at the start of each of our answers before taking the plunge. It's the writing equivalent of warm up exercises before a rugby match to make sure you get the best performance from your muscles: in a writer's case, the mind muscle. What I found used to help the most, was a kind of release of creativity that seems to come when you force your thoughts down the nib of a pencil (you can do it electronically, but pencil works best for me). 

A rough plan doesn't restrict your work, it just helps to shape it. Many a time I've planned out a story to find that as I write, characters suddenly seem to take a life of their own, carve out their own path. Sometimes, it feels that I am writing what they are doing, rather than orchestrating their actions from my writing. It's a weird mental space that writers inhabit!

Which is where non-planning and writing on the wing comes in. Once the creative flow starts, writing seems to happen through you rather than by you. It's as if once you have found the "real" story - that mystical story that exists in the Platonic world of ideas rather then springing from the grey matter between your ears, that story that was just lurking in the ether waiting to be caught and fastened to paper (or translated into digital form) - the story simply materialises. So, I might be sounding a bit metaphysical here, but that's how it feels. 

What actually happens is that by writing freely, with only a vague suggestion about what you want to write, you release the creativity in your brain and it will create the story as you go along. It's quite a liberating way to write, a little exciting, and even a touch disturbing if you are one of those writers who likes complete control over their work.

Whether you plan your work first or not, whether you follow your plan or let yourself get carried along by the power of the story, all writing needs to be revised and polished so that it makes some kind of sense to the reader. Stories without meaning are not stories at all, just a collection of phrases. But revision is a whole other ball game. I'm off to plan a story in the hope I'll actually write one worth submitting to a competition or for publication somewhere. For what is the point of writing if no-one is going to be able to read and understand your work?




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