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When some writers I know get stuck, they simply move on to writing the next scene or even another part of the novel, and they fill in the gaps later. Others write a bunch of scattered scenes and then find a way to stitch them together.
As you can probably tell from this framing, I write like an arrow. One direction only, no bouncing around, no skipping.
Which kind of writer are you?
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It depends on which writing stage I’m at. My ‘outlines’ are basically like a 4-year-old describing the plot of their favorite movie, and I’ll skip around with those if I know a future scene but having worked out all the current stuff yet. But once the outline is finished, it’s straight beginning-to-end all the way.
Mostly straight thru. However, if a future scene appears, I do take notes 🙂
I usually write from the beginning to the end, except I have been known to write the end early.
A little of both, at least for the first draft. I guess it depends on how the ideas come. If I think of something that happens late in the book, sometimes I’ll write it and sometimes I’ll hold onto it in my head, knowing that when I get to that spot in the story I’ll write it down. Now that I think of it, that’s not very efficient!
I need to write it straight through because my story and characters usually evolve in new ways from my outline. If I write out of chronological order, it usually means a lot of edits ir even tossing out what I wrote because it no longer fits. I make notes or jot down future scene ideas but that’s about all.
I’m a jumping bean.
I write chronologically.
My outline allows me to put things in the correct order so I bounce around.
Linear, from beginning to end. I’m a discovery writer (aka pantser), which probably has something to do with this. When I get completely stuck, I write another book and return the stuck book after finishing that other book. That gives me the distance to see where I went wrong. I discard everything I wrote after I took the wrong path, and continue my linear writing until the end. I don’t get stuck often (only twice in 22 completed books), and this approach works for me.
Very linear. I seldom deviate from the chronological order of a story unless it’s to advance a particular plot point that happens to intersect with another plot point (current project has about 6 distinct plot points that will all come together at the end).
More often than not though, I have an ending in mind and I write to that ending, which often can be quite adventurous.
I am a linear thinker so write chronologically. I’ve tired the doing the important scenes first and it didn’t work well for me. The only “out of order” I would do is flashbacks then coming back to where I was. I admire those who can do the fence poles and then fill in around them. I can’t do that. I have to plot it out in a chronological order and write it so thing hook together.
I do not bounce. I plow from the beginning straight to the end. 🙂
For the most part, chronologically. If I’m stuck part way into a novel or a short story, it’s most likely because I don’t know where or how to go next. If I don’t know that, it’s impossible to jump say to the middle or the end. I recently dashed off the opening scene of a crime short story that, for reasons that are unclear, just popped into my head. I love it. But I have no idea where to go from there. I’ll noodle on it, and hopefully something will come to me. (That can take a while. I recently sold a crime story I’d noodled on for years.) If I do know most of the entirety of a story, I’ll proceed chronologically. I rarely skip a scene because I’m stuck on that scene. I’ll battle through it.
I absolutely bounce around. Nothing is in sequence so I have to figure out how two chapter go together and write a transition chapter to link the two. It’s a crazy way to write, but I can sit all day and try to figure out “what comes next,” and never get anywhere — or write what my muse is telling me to write. Strangely enough it always works out in the end as if it just flows from one thing to another. If people only knew how it got there!
I definitely hop around–it’s the way my brain works and, I think, the way memory and storytelling in general work. There are flashbacks and asides. (Of course a writer needs to be sensitive to the proper amounts of each, which, like fine seasonings, can ruin a dish if used to excess!) I have a bigger challenge with my current novel, which I’m not only not writing sequentially but also takes place non-linearly.
Usually cronologicaly, with numerous ‘notes to self’ scattered throughout. 😀