component based authoring
I was recently asked a question about writing and the idea of hopping around in the story line, writing what scene comes to mind.
Some writers have to write from beginning to end, in order, because that's the way their minds work. Other writers find it easier to write a scene somewhere in their plot, because that's the mood they're in or that's what's fresh and clear in their mind's eye.
I can go either way. Mostly, I write from beginning to end in a progression. But occasionally, a scene speaks so very clearly to me that I write it out to capture it.
Some problems can come up when writing a scene out of order. It might have inconsistencies with the rest of the plot line. Hints or themes in the plot might be introduced out of order. As earlier scenes are written, they could trigger changes in the later scene that has already been put to paper.
That's where component based authoring comes in for me. It's a technique I use to organize my writing over the course of an entire manuscript. In component based authoring, I break my story up into components, as the name implies. This is very easy to do with software like Scrivener or Liquid Story Binder, but you can do it manually using any word processing software and just being organized with how you organize your files too. I break my components by scene.
In Liquid Story Binder, I'll have a separate file for each scene. I keep metadata for each scene, such as character point of view and 2 to 3 word description of what's going on in the scene. I'll also have what Liquid Story Binder calls a Builder, basically a virtual document manger, that sort of acts as a container for all of my scenes. With it, I can reorder the scenes, organize them into chapters and build the overall manuscript easily and publish it out as a single file for review or submission.
This sort of organization takes time. So how does it help me? -> High Level Overview
I can look, at a glance, at the whole story and see what scenes are in the hero's or heroine's POV. I can recognize if there's imbalance. In my outline, which I keep up to date as I'm writing, I can color code for heat levels. If there's not enough heat, I can tweak scenes to add more. Similarly, I can color code for plot points. If I need to add more hints for a particular story arc, I can easily see where I've got hints to decide where to build more.
Because my components are scene by scene, I can go looking for a scene easily to make changes. I don't have to swim through my whole manuscript to find it. I also have manageable writing session goals, because I usually sit down with a scene in my head and set the goal to write that particular scene in that session.
Granted, software like Liquid Story Binder helps because I can take all those components and publish them out to a single manuscript to send for submission. It'd be harder otherwise.
Ultimately, it comes down to a scene. Personally, I write the scene speaking to me, now, because that's where my heart and my head space are.
