Kman999
asked
David Wong:
I'm interested in your writing process. Do you know how your stories end before writing them? Do you brainstorm different endings? Do you ever write chapters in the middle of the story and then go back to write early chapters?
David Wong
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[Yeah I'm one of those writers who has an outline ahead of time. I don't stick perfectly to it (no one does) but I have to know where it's going when I start. So the first step in writing a novel for me isn't to just sit down and write an opening scene. It's to spend a few months thinking through the plot and characters and working up an outline with tons of notes to remind myself what it all means later. It takes a bunch of notebooks and note cards and sloppy word docs. Shifting stuff around.
Now, once I start, there's lots of times when I'll jump ahead and fill in a scene that I know is coming later, or write a conversation that's from the second half of the book. If I feel particularly interested in working on a certain scene I'll just do it. Otherwise I work sequentially. But my attention span is too short to just write it A-Z, if I get bored with what I'm working on I'll look at the outline and go write something that seems more fun.
But for instance the first full scene I wrote in Suits was the confrontation between Zoey and Molech in the park, that little back and forth between the two of them, when they meet for the first time. It's just what I felt like doing first.
(hide spoiler)]
Now, once I start, there's lots of times when I'll jump ahead and fill in a scene that I know is coming later, or write a conversation that's from the second half of the book. If I feel particularly interested in working on a certain scene I'll just do it. Otherwise I work sequentially. But my attention span is too short to just write it A-Z, if I get bored with what I'm working on I'll look at the outline and go write something that seems more fun.
But for instance the first full scene I wrote in Suits was the confrontation between Zoey and Molech in the park, that little back and forth between the two of them, when they meet for the first time. It's just what I felt like doing first.
(hide spoiler)]
More Answered Questions
Chevy Rendell
asked
David Wong:
Your blog posts often caution against essentialism (for example, the idea that all of the people who voted for Trump are hate-mongers). In John Dies at the End (a deliciously ambiguous title) the reader's assumptions are untethered (how reliable, for instance, is the narrator?); resolution is subsumed by acceptance that things (people/events) defy essential categories. To what extent, if any, was this deliberate?
David Wong
5,715 followers
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