Letting the Work Flow

[wresch]

I woke up this morning with the endling to my novel. I write mysteries, and I am 65,000 words into an 80-85,000 word murder mystery. Now I finally know who the killer is. Complete surprise to me. I was leaning toward another guy for most of the book. But now I like this other killer better. Why do I mention this? Because I know some folks have their novels completely outlined. They want it. They need it. It works for them. Me? I start with an opening scene. Someone dead. What happens next? No idea. I bring on characters and let them develop. I don't think I'm the only one who works that way. Yes, I can write myself into a dead end. And I end up having to do serious revisions. But I find lots of surprising characters and events along the way.

Just my two cents for another way to write. I certainly don't recommend it for all, but it keeps me writing.

 

[TwistedRomcom]

I will let you know a forbidden technique. Anyone who has ever GM'd a tabletop RPG will be familiar with this one.

When I write a mystery, sometimes readers will theorize about the reveal in the comments. And sometimes the big reveal they come up with is better than what I had in mind. So I'll just change the ending to that and pretend that's what I was going to do all along. Then later they'll read it and be like, "I fucking knew it. The author's a genius, I can't believe they've been subtly hinting at this for so long."