In previous episodes we’ve established the dichotomy between discovery writing and outline writing. In our ‘casts about process, we’ve mostly talked about outlining, working from an outline, and the worldbuilding that goes behind all of that. We’ve never talked much about the process of discovery writing, though.

It is time for us to correct that egregious oversight.

In this installment your hosts muse upon the pros and cons of discovery writing, and how we handle the discovery writing process. We discuss false starts, and how they may not be false at all. We cover dialog, which is always a fun place to start writing, and we offer up some structures that discovery writers may begin with in order to provide themselves direction.

We also tackle endings, which are where most discovery writers have their largest problems.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Way of the Wolf, by E.E. Knight, who has been called the best fantasy author you’ve never heard of.

Writing Prompt: Look around. Now, pick six unrelated items and weave them together in the first chapter. Two of them are Chekov’s Guns.

Abrupt Ending That Came Not Quite Abruptly Enough: 17 minutes and 52 seconds, with screams.

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Transcript

As transcribed by Mike Barker

Key Points: Outline or write, that was the question? Map and plan your road trip, or get in a cool car and take off? False starts may be your friends. Throw some interesting characters in interesting situations and see what happens? Start with characters talking? Discovery writing helps show us who the characters are. Do your characters suggest things and do their own thing? You may be a discovery writer! Don’t be afraid to use some structure if it helps. Advice for endings — analyze what you’ve written, identify the Chekhov’s guns you’ve hung, and pull those triggers. Brainstorming with other people is outlining for discovery writers. Discovery writers revise — go back and make it solid. Think of your first draft as a really detailed outline. Fix it in post.

[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses season four episode 19.
[Dan] 19.
[Brandon] 19. Thank you. Discovery writing.
[Dan] 19.
[Howard] 19 minutes… no, wait, 15 minutes long because you’re in a hurry.
[Dan] And we’re 19.
[Brandon] Okay, let’s get out of this. We’re discovery writing this podcast right now.
[Howard] That was a completely unrehearsed intro. Obviously.

[Brandon] We’ve done several podcasts on how to outline. We were looking through the comments and e-mails we’ve gotten from people asking for certain podcasts, and yes, we do read those, occasionally. A lot of revision ones came up and a lot of questions about revising. We were discussing, and we realized we haven’t really talked about how to be a discovery writer.
[Dan] We have talked a lot about outlining. You may have to search through the archives to find them, but we have covered several times.
[Brandon] So a brief explanation. I have found, just through my experience with writers, writers tend to fall into one of two camps. Either they work really well from an outline, or they’re terrible at working with an outline, and they work better by just putting interesting characters into interesting situations and seeing what happens.
[Dan] I’m going to tweak that slightly. Because the more I think about it and the more I talk to people, I’ve come to believe that it’s not two kinds of writers, it’s two kinds of writing, and that people exist on a scale somewhere between them.
[Brandon] Two kinds of writing [garbled] right. There is quite the scale. In fact, the podcast where we talked about this…

[Howard] The metaphor that I love for this, and I’m not sure, we may have used it before, is that the outline writer sits down with a map and plans the road trip. The discovery writing writer walks into the garage and picks a cool car, and takes off in it.
[Brandon] That’s it exactly. Different writers use different tools for how to approach things on different books. For instance, I tend to outline write my settings and my plots, and I tend to discovery write my characters. Which is why I’ll often have at the beginning of books several false starts, where I try a different character in different roles and throw them out. In different books, I discovery write or not. My epic fantasies, I have to do a lot of outlining. My Alcatraz books, I don’t.
[Howard] The false start is not a bad thing. I was… you see it in any writing, I believe. I wrote an essay for Steve Jackson Games last night. He reviewed it… it was a short essay, but he reviewed it 40 minutes after I sent it to him, and slaughtered the first two paragraphs. Said, “Well, you were kind of finding your legs here, weren’t you? Okay, now we’re rolling, this is the stuff that I love.” I realized, “Oh, yeah. That was exactly how I wrote it, too.” I struggled for 20 minutes with the first two paragraphs, and then the rest just flowed. I think for me, discovery writing is like that. I sit down, I don’t have an outline to work from, I’m hotwiring this car… it’s not that I went into the car and picked one, it’s that I went down the street and picked one and I don’t have the keys to.
[Brandon] We’re back to the stealing podcast.
[Howard] Yeah, we’re back to the stealing podcast. But once I get it rolling, it really flows, it feels good, and it goes to interesting places.

[Brandon] Okay. So let’s talk about how to use that. Because both of you guys are very much discovery writers. In fact, Dan is one of the best discovery writers I know. It seems like he’s learned how to use the process quite a bit. How do you use false starts? Let’s talk about those. Do you do this?
[Dan] I do do this. What I do is the first half of my book will be discovery written, and the second half will be heavily outlined. That’s because I know from experience that I need the help with the ending, but I don’t know what I want the ending to be until I figure out who the characters are and what they want to do and what’s interesting about it. So I will go through… I like to start doing just characters talking to each other. If I know I’m going to have false starts to begin with, I’ll just plan for it. And say okay, let’s start and have this guy just talk. That’ll help me figure out who he is. Then I’ll say great. Put that in a different file. Start over, now that I know who he is, and will have him talk about the story. So I will do that. I like to have characters just talk to each other. I try to develop scenes very organically, just to see where they will go, because I trust my characters are interesting enough to take a scene in a good direction.
[Howard] That’s show, don’t tell, at work for you right there. We all love that. We want to be shown who these characters are, we don’t want to be told about them.

[Brandon] How do you keep that… keep yourself from just rewriting the same thing over and over again? In other words, having a dozen false starts. Oh, a stumper.
[Dan] Difficult question. Because they say different things every time. I really… you know, this is the thing that non-writers find so funny when writers talk about it. But characters will just… they have a mind of their own. If you just give them leeway, they will take off, and just start running in some direction, and you have to struggle to keep up with them. That’s… if you have a really solid character, that’s what it will do. And so…
[Brandon] That right there. I’m going to interrupt. That’s a classic discovery writer comment. If you read online in forums when people talk about things like that, they are discovery writers. My characters never do that.
[Dan] Really? Wow.
[Brandon] I’ve never… almost never had that happen. A little bit in the Alcatraz books. They don’t. I know where the story is going. I know how the plot is being built. I know what needs to happen in this scene. I don’t necessarily know how each character will react in each moment until I’ve written myself into them for the first five chapters or so. After that, I know exactly. Every chapter. But nothing…
[Howard] But you don’t have characters introducing plot twists in act two?
[Brandon] No. They don’t surprise me, they don’t introduce things. I’m an outliner. I think in an outline. I don’t sit down to write a scene until I know what’s going to happen in that scene. That’s why I’m an outliner.

[Dan] So coming from that strong of an outlining mindset, what was it like for you writing Alcatraz? How did you get into that?
[Brandon] It was like writing a standup… an improv comedy routine. If you’ve seen Whose Line Is It, Anyway? That’s how I… analyzing after the fact, that’s how I did it. I gave myself a bunch of props, and said, “No, you can’t have an outline. You’ve just got to make it up on the fly, and it’s got to be funny.” That’s how I got the funny into it, is by making it up on the fly. I can’t be funny in the same way as the Alcatraz books, preplanned.
[Howard] What’s fascinating is that what you just described is a very structured process for laying down a structure and ground rules for doing something that most discovery writers do very organically. We don’t pick our props… well, I talk about picking the car… we kind of do…
[Brandon] You wander in and say, “That’s a great car,” and go. Whereas I actually sit down and say, “Okay, here are the 12 cars I’ve got, and they’ve all got to appear somewhere in one of these chapters, and they’ve got to be mixed with these weird settings and these weird powers.”

[Dan] Giving advice to discovery writers, I think that’s great advice. Don’t over structure yourself because that’s not how you work, but give yourself a little bit. If you know you have to to get to this point, then keep that in mind while you’re discovery writing. Or if you know that something horrible is going to happen… figure out the little things and then just write and watch them incorporate themselves into the story.
[Howard] Some of the best psychotherapy out there looks at what we do with ourselves and identifies things as crutches. When you are trying to discovery write and you’ve never been a discovery writer before, you may look at your outline and your structure and your world building and all of these process elements as crutches. If you try and take them all away, the science of therapy says, “Well, you’re just going to fail.” Don’t take them all away. Leave yourself one or two crutches. Pick them carefully. Then move from there. Brandon’s creation of a structure within which you can discovery write is a fantastic way to do it. Me? I actually do the same thing, I just don’t do it consciously. Because I’m working with the same cast of characters, I’m working with a robust, richly developed world already with Schlock Mercenary. That is my crutch. If I had to discovery write something with brand-new characters, new tech, brand-new genre… throw me into a fantasy environment, I would scream in horror and fall back to an outline.
[Brandon] Ooo… can I say it?
[Howard] Sure.
[Brandon] Luxury!
[Howard] Luxury.
[Brandon] No, no, I get to say it this time.
[Howard] You said it.
[Brandon] You get to work in the same world all the time. You get to work with the same characters. Luxury!

[Brandon] Okay, fine, fine, fine. We’re going to move on. Let’s do our advertisement.
[Howard] Let’s plug a book.
[Brandon] We really… book of the week, we really appreciate audibles supporting us as a podcast and Dan has a great book he wants to talk about.
[Dan] Yes, indeed. Way of the Wolf, the first book of the Vampire Earth series by E. E. Knight. E. E. Knight was recently described to me as the best fantasy writer no one has ever heard of. Which is not entirely fair, because he is actually very big, but he’s not as big as he should be. I don’t think he gets the recognition he deserves.
[Howard] I haven’t heard of him, so…
[Dan] Well, there you go. Vampire Earth is a post-apocalyptic vampire story where these kind of blood sucking aliens have taken over the world and our hero is a little kind of mountain man guy who joins the human rebellion that lives in the Appalachian Mountains and fights back against these things. It’s a fantastic blend of horror and fantasy and science fiction, all in one post-apocalyptic bundle. I recommend it highly.
[Brandon] All right.
[Howard] And we don’t know if it was discovery written?
[Brandon] We don’t know.
[Dan] We don’t know if it was discovery written or not.
[Brandon] We just like the book. Or at least Dan does. Audiblepodcast.com/excuse. Download your free copy with a free trial for 15 days.

[Brandon] All right. I want to do my normal thing. I want to say okay, let’s bring this back and talk about advice. Advice to new writers who maybe are discovery writers and are struggling with their own writing process or want to try it. One big problem discovery writers have… and I want you guys to give us advice on this. Discovery writers have terrible problems with endings. As a discovery writer, how can you help them with their endings?
[Howard] I’m going to give you the best advice that I can here. When I started doing Writing Excuses, I realized that I had problems with endings. You guys taught me all kinds of things. When I decided to sit down with my writing friends, Dan Willis and Bob Defendi, and I did, Dan, kind of what you do where I outlined the end of the book. I sat down with them and I said, “Okay, here’s all the stuff that’s been printed so far in the archives. Here’s the buffer for the next month so you’re getting to read ahead, here is kind of what I had outlined. You guys help me identify the promises that I have already made to the readers that you as readers would be disappointed if they didn’t get fulfilled in some way. And then come up with ideas for fulfilling them.” Now understand, I picked guys who are professional writers to help me with this. But that exercise more than anything else has tightened up my endings. Because they come up with things that I had discovery written and I realized oh, gosh, I didn’t realize that that’s Chekhov’s gun right there on the wall, and I wasn’t planning on shooting it. So that trick…
[Dan] Even earlier, just at the brainstorming stage, brainstorming with other people I’ve found to be incredibly valuable to help with my endings. Because… The science fiction book that I’ve talked about occasionally, I came up with a good idea and pretty much just talked about it to all of my friends. I brought it to my writing group, I talked about it here with the podcasting guys, and said, “Here’s this great idea. What does this make you think of?” They were all able… everyone gave me different ideas. Oh, well, if this exists, then this would naturally follow from that. That gave me this enormous pile of awesome ideas to sift through and say what would make a really climactic ending and then kind of build backwards from there.
[Brandon] Okay. I really liked what you said earlier in the podcast of stopping at the halfway point, and then having an outline. It seems like that’s a way to have your cake and eat it too, so to speak, as a discovery writer. You get to discovery write your story, discover what’s going on, write yourself into the world, and the characters. Then stop. When you start to bring it back and bring it together, then you have some structure and outline. That might be something to try.
[Howard] What’s usually happened when you’re discovery writing the early parts of the book, is that you have in your head… You realize, “Oh, I think I know how this is going to end.” You are now excited about writing the ending, and a lot of discovery writers and a lot of new writers get bound up in writing boring bits. Where they’re now ready to write the exciting ending because they thought of it. I would recommend to as part of this outlining process, write that exciting ending. Then be prepared to apply… was it Orson Scott Card’s advice where the first resolution that you think of is probably the obvious one, and you’re going to throw it out. But you need to have written it down so that you can look at it and figure out what it is that you’re going to change.
[Brandon] What you’re really going to do. That’s interesting.

[Dan] That brings up a good point. Which is, discovery writers, sorry to tell you this, but you’re going to have to go back and revise that. In a lot of cases, think of your first discovery written draft as a really extensive outline because once you figure out what the ending is going to be in the second half, you need to go back in the first half and make sure that you’re foreshadowing things, that you are putting in all the elements that need to be there, so that you’re leading up properly. So revision is still very important even if you are a discovery writer.
[Brandon] Well, discovery writers, I’ve found, tend to do more drafts of a book than outliners. Discovery writers tend to enjoy revising a little bit more, I found, which can sometimes get them into trouble. Discovery writers I know are the ones who will stop at the three quarters mark… or the one quarter mark, sorry, on a book and then start it over again, and then do that again and again and again and again, because they like this revision process.
[Dan] That’s… that one quarter mark? That’s the one to really worry about, because that’s where the freedom starts to disappear because you’ve written so much and you realize, “Oh, everything I write from here on out has to take into account all the stuff I’ve already written. I can’t destroy the setting and the characters that I’ve already done.” So that becomes more of a burden as you go.

[Howard] It becomes more of a burden. But at the same time, I think good advice would be to allow yourself to break it.
[A.m.] What does that mean?
[Howard] Allow yourself to keep discovery writing clear up into the second half and if something feels like it needs to be broken, write it. You’re going to fix it in a rewrite, anyway.
[Brandon] Yeah. I think the I-can-fix-it-in-post philosophy helps discovery writers quite a bit.
[Dan] Very much.
[Brandon] Because otherwise you’re going to stop and want to rewrite the book every time. The problem with discovery writers is then you will discover all sorts of new stuff and take your story a completely different direction. By the time you arrive where you were before, you have a completely different story. You might as well have written two books, at that point, or started two different books. That can get you into all sorts of trouble with not having you finish things. I will say though that discovery writers… something I kind of envy about discovery writers and when I’ve done it something I like about my fiction, is that sense of spontaneity, the organic growth of the story. I guess this is a reason to discovery write, is because it does feel more organic. And by organic, I need more real in many ways.
[Howard] It feels miraculous is what it feels like. No, I’m serious. If for me… when I sit down without an outline, without a framework other than… I mean I’ve got the characters, I’ve got maybe some ideas, and all of a sudden, new things just start happening — that to me feels just really miraculous and wonderful.
[Brandon] What was it Neil Gaiman said? That writing a book is like jumping out of an airplane with some yarn and knitting a parachute by the time you hit the ground… or trying to, at least. Which I found to be quite a great quote, particularly if you are a discovery writer.

[Brandon] All right, Howard, discovery write us a writing prompt.
[Howard] Discovery write us a writing prompt? You know what, we’re going to do Brandon’s improv technique. Okay? Wherever you are right now, unless you’re in your car, look around and pick six unrelated items. Pick six unrelated items.
[Dan] You can do this in a car, just don’t crash.
[Howard] They’re going to be related, because you’re on the road. Okay, six unrelated items and weave them together in the first chapter of your discovery written thing. Knowing that at least two of them are Chekov’s gun’s that are going to prove to be important throughout your story.

[Brandon] You don’t know this, I bet, Howard, but you just gave a classic writing prompt that’s been used for decades in creative writing classes.
[Howard] Crap.
[Dan] Man.
[Brandon] No, that’s awesome. Normally it takes the form of “Dump out your purse” if you’re a woman or open up a drawer…
[Dan] Dump out the person-next-to-you purse if you’re a man?
[Brandon] Take a bunch of unrelated items and… you know. Great writing prompt. You guys are totally out of excuses, now go write.
[Howard] Oh, and put that stuff back in your purse.
[Brandon] Yeah. And this wasn’t 19 minutes long. I’m sorry, we lied.
[Dan] We can drag it out though.
[Howard] We’re only 90 seconds away. Jordo, stop us.
[Brandon] Producer Jordo is turning us off. He’s cutting us…