To plot or to roll the dice?

[Andre Jute]

K. A. wrote: "One way I like to work with story lines is to write out three or four different things I could do with a story line, then give each one a value between 1 and 6. Then toss a six-sided dice and see which one comes up."

Ha! Six equally good ways to execute a literary concept is a perfect recipe for immobilizing the writer. I really, really, very much, prefer to have one way through the maze, determined by the characters.

Read that last phrase again. It's years since I last knew how a book I started would end, or even what would happen in the second chapter, or the first, for that matter. What I do is to wait until the chief character speaks clearly in my mind, and then just to drop him/her/it on the page at a crossroad in his/her/its life, and proceed from there. Of course, I can do this with a certain amount of confidence because I've been a professional writer since I was 13, and I don't know how many books I've written (I measure shelf feet of English first editions instead, with an expanding builder's rule -- well over ten feet). But most of all I can do this from faith in my characters, from knowing that the character with the problem about to be solved (or aggravated) will see me right. It is from this process that my disdain for formal "plotting" derives.

Unfortunately, those nearer the beginnings of their careers should do as I say in Writing a Thriller-- those are proven methods that keep you out of trouble and from falling into the slough of writer's block -- not as I do. My actual method is a risky procedure for high rollers and the impassively experienced, people who don't blink when they have to throw an entire novel, two years of work, in the bin.

[J.A.]

I've yet to experience writer's block. I kind of have the opposite problem in that so much nonsense is running through my head that I'm busy thinking about books four or five down the line in series I'm probably never going to do.

I know where I want to start and I know where I want to end, and I tend to let the details kind of fill themselves in as appropriate.

I don't tend to formally outline, but I do tend to think about things a lot, and as I think various things shift, cooler ideas emerge, et cetera.

I actually did a formal outline before starting on my latest book, but things drifted a lot in the middle anyway, so I don't know if functionally it really added much to the process.

[Andre Jute]

J.A. wrote: "I actually do a formal outline before starting on my latest book, but things drifted a lot in the middle anyway, so I don't know if functionally it really added much to the process."

John Braine would write a freestyle first draft, reduce it to an outline, and then write a completely new draft to that outline. He swore by the method, and his result speak for themselves. To me it seems a bit of a waste, and in my opinion it risks dropping your best spontaneous lines in the round filing cabinet.

[K.A.]

There are plenty of elements that I can add by rolling dice.

I mention the six sided dice because I'm not sure if anyone here has heard of twenty-sided or my favorite, percentile dice.

It never hurts to build a character with a bit of randomness. I asked some basic questions - get a random answer for them and decide how to make it fit together.

Granted, I learned to do that with D&D - but I've used it to great effect (affect???).

[Andre Jute]

"D&D"? Drunk and disorderly? Not you too, Kat!

In this context both effect and affect would be right, but generally you should stick to effect, which is a general result or consequence, whereas affect is an appeal to the emotions.

"The effect of such fiscal stupidity was that the market crashed."

"Ah, the story really did affect you then, judging by the three tear-stained tissues."