Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A Can I avoid free writing?

There is story development and there is narration. You need to compose a story before you can narrate it. Some people are naturals at story development. For them the story flows so naturally that t...

posted 7y ago by Mark Baker‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2020-01-03T20:41:54Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28991
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:42:14Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28991
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:42:14Z (about 5 years ago)
There is story development and there is narration. You need to compose a story before you can narrate it. Some people are naturals at story development. For them the story flows so naturally that they can focus on narration from the moment they start writing.

Some people struggle with story development. Some address this with planning and outlines. Some do the story development in their heads before they start narrating. And some start scribbling down whatever comes into their heads and hope a story thread will emerge from it. This is what so called free writing is about.

Some people are naturals at narration. For them, the narrative flow emerges more or less intact in the first draft. For others, constructing a working narrative is a laborious process of many revisions. Don't expect your free writing story development to produce a great narrative. And don't confuse that process with the behavior of people who are both naturals at story and naturals at narration and can get a good first draft done first time out.

If free writing is your method for story generation, then don't worry about the writing details because this is not you first draft of the narrative, it is merely story generation. Be prepared (indeed, work with the full intention) to throw the entire thing away once you have found your story shape, and then begin the task of narration over from the beginning.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-06-29T10:21:05Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 0