Winter 2012 - I am NOT a Sequential Person

So I had my setting, my characters, and the beginnings of a story.  What next? I'm a teacher and everything I learned (and taught) about how to write a story was completely thrown out the window when I started writing.  As a teacher we tell students to start with a "story map" which includes- setting, characters, problem and solution.  Then as they get older you add on things like climax, rising action, falling action and so on.

I had given up on the whole "horror" story thing when I realized that it just wasn't my genre.  I wanted a love story and a story of life lessons. So putting the first "Reverie" behind me, I began to write about a difference experience for Ava Banks.

When I started writing the new "Reverie" all I knew were the basics.  I didn't have a problem or a solution.  I had no idea where the story was going to go. I knew 3 simple things:

1. Ava was living on Rudyard Lake for the summer where she met Jack and his parents.

2. Ava would have very vivid, real dreams where she dreamt about Katherine and her family and her love for John.

3. I wanted there to be undertones of "reincarnation"- I wanted the reader to have a sense of a connection between Ava and Katherine.

And that was where I began.  I just began writing.  Somedays it was a dream scene with Katherine and John.  Somedays it was Ava and Jack and what they were doing on the lake.

I created a file on my computer with different "scenes".  It was fun and creative and I was enjoying what I was doing.  I still had no idea how this was going to become a story, I wasn't sure that was even my goal at that point.

So for months I wrote "stuff", pieces of these characters lives.  It was basically all over the place.  Which is kind of ironic because it aligns with how I live my life.  I don't have a "plan" for life, it just happens.  I don't write down grocery lists or plan meals.  I don't have a schedule for cleaning and I certainly don't even think about next week or next month.  It might be lazy or haphazard but it works for me. Whenever I tried to outline my story it became stressful and I didn't like the story so much then, so I just wrote- whatever was in my head came out through the keyboard.  My style of writing is very stream of consciousness.  I think it, I write it. 

By the spring I had several different word documents in my file.  Each containing separate events for my characters. I was running out of steam and out of ideas.  It was time to start piecing them together.  I literally copy and pasted them together.  I had several working "drafts" with different scenes in different places. I was beginning to see a story developing.  I guess it was what was in my head all along, I just didn't write it in sequential order.  I am definitely NOT a sequential person. 

By the time I had finished putting the pieces together I had well over 150 pages and the beginnings of a story in my file. And I was stumped. I had no idea where to go from there.  I was invested in these characters, I knew them so well. I loved the settings and found that "living" in the 1800's prairie was becoming my favorite.  I began to dream about Katherine and John and Ava and Jack.  I would think about them all the time, they became a part of me!

(Here is what I kinda pictured Ava and Jack to look like.  I never did this for Katherine and John, maybe because I didn't have a problem picturing them in my head- they were always more vivid for me)

However, I still had no idea where the story was going.  I didn't know if I would be able to finish it.  I started to doubt myself and what I was doing.  THIS right here is exactly why I didn't tell anyone what I was doing.  At this point only 3 people knew I was writing and that even felt like too many.  I became very very protective of it.  It was mine and I didn't like sharing it with anyone.  I didn't want to open myself up to questions and expectations.  What if I didn't finish it? What would I tell people then? I didn't want anyone to know I was doing this because it was ALL MINE!!!  Every piece of it was for me and me only and I liked it that way! 

But I was stumped and had no idea how to proceed further in the story.  Summer was quickly approaching and I decided I would take the summer to write and revise and add more to this story, that still had no ending or even an idea of where it was going. 

Was the summer of 2012 when it all came together? 

Until next time,

Do you like to make lists and have a plan of action for your life or are you like me and live like a paper in a wind storm?