26 Mar 2009, Posted by Cat in News, 13 Comments. Tagged writing

hours in the day, or lack thereof…

I tend to write my stories starting at the story end of things. As in, I come up with a concept, then work on characters and plot, then bulk out the setting pretty much in that order. But I know a few writers who do it the other way round. They start with a setting that piques their interest, then invent the who and why and how of it all.

So last week while I was ambling the streets of Thirroul in my lunch break, I thought I’d do a writing exercise in my head. Pick a setting and see if I could wrangle myself all the other requisite elements. It was going to be a tough one and would probably take me weeks, but that was OK cos I didn’t have time to write a new story now anyway, what with that troublesome novella hanging over my head, not to mention the novel and all. Well bugger me if I didn’t have the whole fucking thing imagined, plotted, plumped and padded, frothed, frou-froued and garnished within the space of 15 minutes! I even managed two alternative endings, one straight up, the other with a twist.

So now I’m stuck with a fabby, exciting story in an exotic setting and no fucking time to get stuck into it. Yes, I have written it down in dot point form. Yes I have determined what research material I need and where to get it. No I haven’t thought up a title.

Writing: sometimes it drives you nuts. Other times it drives you more nuts.