Tag: planning ahead

Lifetime Plans Within My Lifespan

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

Time speeds up as we get older. As a kid, I could never understand how short our lives truly are. But that’s a kid’s pleasure and privilege – his whole life is spread out before him. Now, as I reach middle age, I find myself thinking more and more about the future, about the things I want to do, the things I can do and the things I might not be able to do.

Life is many things. You can’t sum it up in a sentence, but here’s one that at least defines one of its many facets: Life is something we must try to manage wisely. Time is a pesky resource that defies attempts to buy it back, reinvest or hoard. It scoffs at being treated like gold or oil. You can’t get more of it, ever.

So, when I think about my life, I think about the future. I think about my plans. I work toward accomplishing my goals. And yet …

I’m also learning to hold my plans loosely. Things change for both the better and the worse. Life is dynamic, and if we can’t be flexible, we’ll break under the stress. So, I plan, but I don’t keep those plans set in stone. Sometimes, I have to adjust or make sacrifices. The future is an unknown, and thinking I know what I will do tomorrow is self-deception. I don’t know. I can plan ahead, but I can’t ever be sure that tomorrow will turn out how I think it will.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Planning Ahead vs. Winging It: A Reflection on Writing Styles

Ever heard the phrase “writing by the seat of your pants?” Some writers have a knack for making up the whole story as they go. They start with no outline and no treatment. They just start writing and end up wherever they may. Improvisation is a special skill and can lead to some truly inspired work when the author goes with his gut and lets the story flow out of his mind. Like a spring bubbling out of the rock, making things up as you go can produce the most unexpected and wonderful stories.

It’s also a skill that not everyone has the good fortune to possess. I, for one, need to know where my story is going before I begin. The outline is the foundation of every story I write. Every scene, every step, every action must be planned out in advance. Like an architect designing a building, I have the blueprints spread out before me so I have an inkling of where my plot will ultimately end up.

Otherwise, I’m adrift at sea and tossed about by a series of random events on a meandering journey with no point or overarching theme. Ok, some stories do work well with random-events plots, but these aren’t the type I’m trying to write. I try to stick to my strengths.

That being said, writing is a truly organic process, and I mean that in more ways than one. Stories come alive on the keyboard (or under the pen if you’re so inclined). Like living creatures, they have urges and inclinations of their own, and a writer develops the intuition to detect those urges and know when to follow them and when to restrain. “Story whisperer” isn’t a term you’re likely to ever hear, but like animal trainers, writers end up gaining a deeper understanding of how their story “thinks” and where it wants to go. Exploring new potentialities can lead to new plot threads that improve the overall end result. Writing is full of pleasant surprises like that.

As someone who loves to plan ahead, I’m not always interested in developing every new thread of a story that is revealed as I write it. But I do find that I tend towards winging it in certain circumstances. Dialogue, especially, lends itself to improvisation, if only because no matter how much I develop a story’s framework, the dialogue between characters never really falls into place until I sit down and write it in detail.

This is the fun of writing: Watching your characters come alive and gaining a deeper knowledge of how they think and relate to each other. I’ve surprised myself plenty of times with how my own creations grow beyond my expectations.

Action scenes can also end up going in completely unpredicted directions. Writing a fight scene or a chase can deviate from the “script” as it becomes apparent your original plan simply won’t work. So, I adapt and change course. Action scenes are hard enough to write as it is. Learning to wing it when necessary adds a whole new layer of challenge that can, nevertheless, improve your story if it lines up with the logic of the scene and the characters’ natures.

What does this all mean for you as a writer (assuming you are one, of course)? Well, maybe you’re a little freaked out by my talk of stories as living creatures and think I should get some therapy. Or maybe you’re nodding in agreement. How I write is certainly not how others write, and the ideas that friends and teachers tell you may not line up with your own. Everyone has a different style: Some love to go in without a clue and find out where they end up, others definitely need a solid framework before they can begin the first sentence.

Writing styles are unique to the writer. Everyone has their own process. Whether winging it or planning ahead, all writers find their sweet spot and use it to create something awesome.

The gods and beings of ancient myth never went away. They just moved on with the times.

My book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is currently available on Amazon.com. Venture into the world of the Greek god Hermes, a world filled with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, magic, and trickery. It’s a tough job, being a god!

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