RafeWorld

well, not completely, at least.

When I was writing the script for the winter play, I was amazed at how “alive” the story could come at times. Those scenes weren’t my creation as much as I would focus on the story and write down what I saw. These resulted in what I feel are currently some of the stronger scenes of the play. There are a couple of pages here or there where I felt like I was forcing dialogue into characters mouths, and, sure enough, those are the parts that don’t play quite as well.

So what does this have to do with me being crazy?

When I explained my writing process to my wife, or one of my actors, they gave me a slightly crazy look. I’d tell them, “I don’t know why you’re in this scene, but your character wouldn’t leave when I expected them to, so we need to figure out why you’re still here.” They just didn’t understand.

Thanks to the world of blogging and the Internet, I get to see other writers discuss their writing process. When he was writing Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski wrote a newsgroup entry about writing a scene where a major character was being murdered… how he knew who the murderer would be up until he was writing that page, at which point another character stepped forward and asked to do it – so he changed the plan. Today Neil Gaiman writes about how he’s “more or less happily” writing a chapter of his book, “more or less as I’m at that place where I hope that the book knows what it’s doing because right now I don’t have a clue.” He’s letting the story lead the way, following it with his writing.

These are writers I look up to – writers I know I will never be in league with, and they have a similar process. Writing isn’t about creating the story sometimes. Sometimes it’s about finding the right words to tell the story that has found you. I think that’s pretty cool. You just have to have the sense to follow the story, and hope you can find the right words…

… and maybe not tell non-writers that you let the characters lead the way. One of these days, trying to explain that might lead the way to me in a straightjacket. But at least writer’s I respect would understand.