I loved the way you developed your article and I can see how it would help certain people. Most people need to organise - however, there are a few of us who cannot write if we have to organise.
I have not spent my life writing, only the last 18 years. However, much of it has been at the rate of 8 to 14 pages a day.
I did not have an idea for a novel. I had one very simple idea: A baby is born with the gift of empathy. She can feel everyone but she can also take what they feel, add what she wants and sent it back, for instance, softening their pain.
That is all I had for starting with. I have now written 13 books of between 1,200 to 2,000 pages each. At another site, for years, as I wrote and completed each book, I had about 740 readers downloading my books.
I never had compliments about my ideas; what I had was comments about my characters, some of them very touching.
Before, I tried to write poetry, but I was encouraged to study, send my poems to certain poetry mags and go to poetry coffee shops in London where you read out your poem and get criticised.
It killed my ability to write poetry (only one poem has survived out of hundreds over forty years) and I posted it here - at least I had one beautiful comment, so I'm not sorry.
Same with my love for sketching and painting. I was sent to art school and within less than a year I set everything on fire and never sketched or painted again.
As far as I am concerned, I do not write my story, my characters do. To make it clear that it is so, they write in a diary and my subconscious receives it and I write. Communication between conscious and subconscious is not that good, so they often get angry with me for messing up their lives.
I am making this long comment, because I want to tell your readers that you are correct and your advice is good for most people, but if they do not fit and need to do crazy - then they must go ahead and do it.
Good on you. I do know what it is like when the characters take over, but mostly I need to plan. Otherwise, the story just gets lost and I end up in a funk not knowing where it is going, and end up with my brain frozen. People who write by the seat of their pants are an alien species to me. I do not claim to be right; I only share what I know.
Pleased to make your acquaintance.
Nick
Thank you - and I loved being referred to as an alien species.
There is one advantage in writing my way. I am placed in the same situation as any other reader, I have no idea what is coming and so I too am reading a story. The minus side? It makes it very difficult to be objective and delete unnecessary paragraphs. Even if I've read what I've written ten times, I continue to find mistakes and not only superfluous sentences or paragraphs, but also (the only way I can think of putting it) split-hair parts that do not add to the story and only distract the reader for a moment. Luckily I have rid my stories of many of those.
Do you ever read the classics and wonder, that author who wrote two hundred years ago, when the techniques of writing were not as polished, what would he/she think of an article helping them to write more effectively? Could it be that they would recognise it as being something they have already taught themselves?
Not necessarily. I think the nature of story, the story arc, etc, is more than just cultural (there is no society in the world that does not have stories). I think story patterns express the nature of the human mind and how our brains are constructed/work.
Therefore, stories from the past are like evolution, the only ones we know about are the successful ones that chime with the human brain/mind. The rest have disappeared -
become extinct. I think 200 years ago, writing a successful novel was a lot more hit-and-miss than it is today.
Back then, they would have loved to have access to the wealth of story and writing information we possess.
I think the internet has made story more important to human society not less.
If the internet is being shaped by story, I wonder if the internet itself reflects the nature of the human mind/brain. Ooh, that's a deep question - I will have to consider a post on that one.