One Journey

Dial 1 for Settings

Dial 2 for Characters

Dial 3 for Dramatic Entrances

Dial 4 for Dialogue

Dial 5 to Commiserate

Dial 6 for Verbs

Dial 7 for Calisthenics

Dial 8 to Kill a Character

Dial 9 for Endings

Dial 0 for More Help

“Dramatic entrances” is intriguing. At any rate, if you’re really stuck, something like this could well be worth a try. If this whole planning ahead experience (which thus far has been really positive and fun for me!) works out, then I suspect I’d have recourse to something like this during the planning stages. By the time I actually started writing, I’d hopefully have ironed things out enough that this wouldn’t be necessary.

On the other hand, I ended up inserting a bit of a revelation in my scene a couple of days ago that came much earlier than I planned. I knew it was the right time for it, but it does mess things up rather nicely. I’ve got to shuffle around and rework the next couple of scenes to get things back on track. I suspect they’ll get there–I have a few ideas floating around for what and how to shuffle my stuff. But, such surprises aren’t altogether eliminated from writing, even with a ton of planning ahead of time. And I think they’re important. Sometimes the story shapes in a new way, and action gets switched around from the original plan–and it’s all to the good. Forcing it the other way in such cases often just results in stiffer, more stilted prose.