The Writing Process
January 4, 2003 As posted on the Simon & Schuster Bulletin Board

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I'm so curious about your writing process! Do you have an outline? Do you stick to it? When you sit down to begin a new book, is there one specific scene you envision? Or the end? Or the characters themselves? Speaking of character, how do you develop them? In other words, do they already exist in your mind from Day One or do you go through a character-development exercise to help you create them even further? And what do you do if - when you're writing - they do something uncharacteristic?

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No, I never work from an outline. The times I've experimented with that, I felt I should stick to the outline which is a bad move for me, because my plots, dialogue, and secondary characters evolve spontaneously as I'm writing. I have no idea how to write the story until I¡¦m writing it. I learned long ago not to *make* my characters do anything. Whenever I do that, I end up deleting it because it's forced and unnatural. I've cut some of my favorite dialogue and narrative out of nearly every chapter because it's wrong for the characters and/or the book.

Yes, when I begin a new book, I generally have one specific pivotal scene in mind near the opening of the book--a scene that sets up the plot particularly well or introduces the characters particularly well. That's **all** I have when I start out--a loose premise for a plot and a concept of the two main characters. I then start at page 1 and work toward that. The rest evolves, usually with a whole lot of frustration and despair, punctuated with occasional bouts of excitement and delight. At some point during the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the manuscript, I usually come up with a big ending I really like, and I stop to write it in rough draft. Usually, I end up using it. Occasionally not.

To give you a specific idea: In the case of PARADISE, I decided to write about a beautiful department store heiress who gets involved as a teenager with a steel worker and who becomes pregnant as a result. I also knew they would separate soon after the beginning of the book, each believing the other didn't want their baby, and that it would be her father's fault. I intended for the second part of the book to open when the hero and heroine met again¡Xas grownups. That is everything I knew. All the secondary characters, excluding Meredith's father and Lisa Pontini, sprang up spontaneously when I needed them.

For the answer to how I develop my characters, check my message on the board posted last night in answer to that question.

When characters do something uncharacteristic--but something I really like or enjoy or seems to be really good writing--I do the same thing every time: I try to leave it in; I re-write around it to make it work; I try to slip it past my subconscious concerns. And then, invariably, I end up taking it out. I just hate it when that happens, and it happens quite often.

[This message has been edited by Judith McNaught (edited 01-04-2003).]

~~ Judith McNaught on Simon & Schuster's SimonSays Discussion Board