The recent(ish) decision of The Pulitzer Prize committee to award no fiction prize, I have thought about my own past experiences with writing creatively. So many things come into consideration when someone decides to put something down on paper (or computer.) How do you get from idea to page? What does 'idea' mean? What comes first? Does it always follow the same pattern? How do details get added? How many, when? How much revision occurs, and where along the process? How much is enough, how much is too much? How are characters developed? What does 'finished' mean? Is it similar for everything? What influences can be detected and are they conscious decisions? I'm sure everyone who writes has a different path to completion. But here is mine, to compare.
I always start with a very basic premise: who are the major characters and what are they doing. Secondary characters rarely appear in this part of the process. But it's not just an event: I work out a basic outline of conflict and resolution. This might change, but rarely. The details of these few participants in the drama may morph but their motivations don't. But I rarely write it down more than a few sentences to remind me, lest I forget completely. Then I leave it. Sometimes, it shoves its way to the foreground of my thoughts, but mostly, my mind works on it without my trying to force the issue. Sometimes this process can be a few weeks. Sometimes, I have a thought about something for years. (I had envisioned a play that I did not write for a decade.) I'm in good company: Janacek would write a complete libretto, set it, sometimes completely, leave it in a drawer, allow it to work itself out in the back of his mind, throw the first draft out, and compose another, sometimes with very little moving from one to the other. I don't write a whole play or story or screenplay then throw it out, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm ahead in the game.
More anon...
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