I’ve had a couple of good writing days (not necessarily days of good writing, but good days of writing) and I am once again astounded by the way the direction of a story can change. Attitudes, emotions, motivations can turn, just like that.
I don’t know if it’s because it takes me so long to complete anything, or because I go over and over and over it or because I don’t really know where I’m going when I start outside of a vague premise.
More and more I think the characters are completely in control and I’m just their means of saying what they want said and I wonder if those people who outline ever experience their characters hijacking their words and end up somewhere completely different.
If you think about it though, if I start out not knowing where I’m going, how do I know that the place I end up isn’t where I was supposed to be, I just had to go the long way round to get there.
