Maybe I'm just tripping over differences in process. I don't outline. I'll often make some notes, mainly so that I don't forget key points while a story is percolating in the back-brain until it's ready to write, but never anything so organized as an outline. Usually the "notes" are at least partly the actual words I'll use in the text.
Because that's how I get story ideas: as words. I get the literal actual words I will use in the text first, not last. If I'm lucky (and I usually am), the words come with enough bits of ideas attached that I know what they're for, but even then, I get the development of the ideas as words, not as abstract ideas that I then need to figure out how to describe.
So to take this morning's example, I don't think I should contrast how physically fit one character is compared to the other. Hmm, let's see, I could have him watching her stretch, and being surprised she can get into those positions. What I think is watched her put herself through the most amazing set of contortions. He hadn't known the human body could even get into some of those positions. His certainly couldn't. And those are the words that go into the story, usually unchanged.
The words do (usually) come with concepts attached, but the concepts are a rider, not the source. For example, the above tells me that the characters share a (motel?) room before the one in which they sleep together, because that's not the physical activity he's recovering from. ;-) Which comes more or less concurrently with:
"You want first crack at the shower?" He started to swing his leg out of bed, and it promptly cramped. "You go ahead." He could collapse on the floor in a quivering lump without her observation.
"I've only done a proper mystery once, precisely because of this problem of having to start from the end and work one's way backwards."
Who said anything about working backwards? I'm making it up as I go along, and hoping it all ties up properly at the end -- just like I do with any other story. Which may explain why I'm having so damn much trouble; proper mystery writers doubtless are much more organized. ;-) But it's the only way I can address myself to a story, so there we are.
And really, the problem I'm having is the same problem I have with any story. A mystery makes it more obvious, because mysteries are so very plot-oriented, but I run into the same wall with any genre. (Arguably, all stories have some element of mystery, because there's always a puzzle to be solved or a question to be answered.) There's still "character must do a Thing to get from P to Q. What is Thing?"
"It sounds as though you and I plot novels in the same way!"
And here I was just thinking what wildly different processes we have!
I don't plot a novel at all. I just type along as words come to me, and hopefully those words have some plot progression incorporated in them. If they don't, I flail and bang my head against the wall and pester my poor housemate with brainstorming sessions until I come up with something that lets me move ahead another few steps.
I think we may still be talking at cross-purposes, somewhat. Or else I'm missing something, which I grant is certainly possible. It seems like you're looking at what to do with the pieces? While I'm still trying to get pieces in the first place.
Let me try this: I need a better way to generate ideas for actions/events that will fit the parameters I know the story needs.
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Maybe I'm just tripping over differences in process. I don't outline. I'll often make some notes, mainly so that I don't forget key points while a story is percolating in the back-brain until it's ready to write, but never anything so organized as an outline. Usually the "notes" are at least partly the actual words I'll use in the text.
Because that's how I get story ideas: as words. I get the literal actual words I will use in the text first, not last. If I'm lucky (and I usually am), the words come with enough bits of ideas attached that I know what they're for, but even then, I get the development of the ideas as words, not as abstract ideas that I then need to figure out how to describe.
So to take this morning's example, I don't think I should contrast how physically fit one character is compared to the other. Hmm, let's see, I could have him watching her stretch, and being surprised she can get into those positions. What I think is watched her put herself through the most amazing set of contortions. He hadn't known the human body could even get into some of those positions. His certainly couldn't. And those are the words that go into the story, usually unchanged.
The words do (usually) come with concepts attached, but the concepts are a rider, not the source. For example, the above tells me that the characters share a (motel?) room before the one in which they sleep together, because that's not the physical activity he's recovering from. ;-) Which comes more or less concurrently with:
"You want first crack at the shower?"
He started to swing his leg out of bed, and it promptly cramped. "You go ahead." He could collapse on the floor in a quivering lump without her observation.
"I've only done a proper mystery once, precisely because of this problem of having to start from the end and work one's way backwards."
Who said anything about working backwards? I'm making it up as I go along, and hoping it all ties up properly at the end -- just like I do with any other story. Which may explain why I'm having so damn much trouble; proper mystery writers doubtless are much more organized. ;-) But it's the only way I can address myself to a story, so there we are.
And really, the problem I'm having is the same problem I have with any story. A mystery makes it more obvious, because mysteries are so very plot-oriented, but I run into the same wall with any genre. (Arguably, all stories have some element of mystery, because there's always a puzzle to be solved or a question to be answered.) There's still "character must do a Thing to get from P to Q. What is Thing?"
"It sounds as though you and I plot novels in the same way!"
And here I was just thinking what wildly different processes we have!
I don't plot a novel at all. I just type along as words come to me, and hopefully those words have some plot progression incorporated in them. If they don't, I flail and bang my head against the wall and pester my poor housemate with brainstorming sessions until I come up with something that lets me move ahead another few steps.
I think we may still be talking at cross-purposes, somewhat. Or else I'm missing something, which I grant is certainly possible. It seems like you're looking at what to do with the pieces? While I'm still trying to get pieces in the first place.
Let me try this: I need a better way to generate ideas for actions/events that will fit the parameters I know the story needs.