In commenting on David Hulet’s post on the recent BYU writing salon, I realized the topic was something I wanted to write about some more.

How do I write? Spurts (squeezed out by deadlines) have been most common for me, but I agree with David that a regular, set time each day is far more productive. And prolific. Sure, it’s hard, but once you get started it does get easier (the power of momentum). And geysers doth not a writer make. :)

On a smaller scale, whether I outline, freewrite, or just start typing (or all three) really varies from piece to piece. Usually I freewrite to snag the idea, then write down the flanking idealets that trail it down, and for the rest of the piece I alternate between outlining and writing, switching whenever I get stuck.

Case in point: for the play I’m currently working on, Encyclopedia, I got the core idea a couple weeks ago while reading in Mosiah. Just a seed, really. Then this afternoon I sat down with the intention of writing out a scene, to get some raw material out there that I could begin to work with, and also to see if I would get any direction on the plot (since at that point all I had was a single concept). As I wrote the first three sentences of the initial scene description, though, a flood of ideas came crashing in, and a page of notes later — to my surprise — I had the complete skeletal outline for the play. All before writing a single word of dialogue.

But I still don’t know why one of the characters is getting himself involved in the play’s events, or what he’s trying to accomplish. I’ve thought about it and yet nothing’s coming. So the next step will be writing out that first scene and bringing him on stage to see what he says, because it’s often in that first draft that I’ll find some glimmer of a motive that I can then dig out.

I do find that the more I know in advance — who my characters are, what makes them tick, the plot arc, etc. — the easier the play is. And yet there’s something to be said for just sitting down and writing, too, cutting out a slab of clay and throwing it on the table to see what’s inside it. I like going back and forth between the two — outlining and writing — so I get a nice mixture of structure and organic, solid and liquid, order and chaos. :)