I'm going to let myself write out of order scenes and hope I can figure out how they weave together later

I'm doing that too. I reckon that if I have an idea, there's no point waiting for it's correct place in the sequence to put it in. This whole thing is just a mind-splurge. Building a linear plot is definitely a job for December.

S.D.

I'm doing that too. I try to look at it more like "I am writing 50,000 words of stuff that could eventually become a novel" instead of "I have to write 50,000 words of perfect story, in order". Even if I come up with 50,000 words of totally disjointed scenes that I have to spend the next year rearranging and editing, it's still 50,000 words that I actually wrote!

i always do that. better that than forgetting wtf i was intending to write later on down the line.

That's what I did last year, and it worked really well! It helped me relax a little bit too, because I didn't feel like I was forcing my story along, it just came as it came, and I wrote it that way. If I knew where it went, I wrote it there, if I didn't, I just made a quick note and went on where I was. So far it is the best strategy that has worked for me in NaNo. I do story boarding and such as well, but I tend to plot only the most important parts and then let myself run free through the gaps. Last year, I was able to get halfway, which is better than the year before (as you can see below!). I am hoping that it proves to be effective for this year too! :)

Good luck :)

2008 - Chains of Revenge (25k - halfway!)
2007 - Ashes to Ashes (Complete Fail)

I think it depends on the kind of book. Last year I had a very plot driven story that I had worked out well in advance.

Think about To Kill A Mockingbird. There's a book that you really couldn't write out of order. Each event has it's causes and things that it causes and it all has to fit together. (Well, I supposed you could write the scenes in any order but you need to know what order they happen in before you can write them or you won't understand the purpose of the scene.)

But this year, I'm more driven by a series of little stories that I plan to shape into a coherent whole later.

The example I'm using in my mind is Tom Sawyer. There's a book that seems to be a bunch of vignettes that are arranged in almost arbitrary order. But, buried within all those vignettes is a overarching plot. It's possible that Mark Twain didn't START with that plot but added it afterwards! You could certainly write the story of the boys going to the island and coming back before or after you wrote the rest of it. Surely it's in the perfect spot for the story in the book but it doesn't really DEPEND on anything.

So, yeah, you can write some books like that. And, dog gone but it sure makes it a lot easier!

Dave

--
In theory, theory is like practice.
In practice, it isn't.

Thank you

Your post are very helpful.

I shall dive back into writing out of order scenes and trust the unfolding process of this Novel.
It is so great to have allies on our writing journey's.

write well

enjoy

Aisling

http://www.symbolicbridging.com/
http://www.aislingnano.wordpress.com/

do you find that you are going back and forth when writing scenes?

I'm writing the same scene from different but related perspectives then i skip farther back in the writing an then farther forward.
It's a great deal to hold in my mind, thank goodness for the other than conscious mind.

How's it working for you, the writing as it unfolds, adventure?

http://www.symbolicbridging.com/
http://www.aislingnano.wordpress.com/

I do it a lot during NaNo. Especially when I start getting stuck or bored with a section of my novel. I'll just move on to something else. Like right now I have a very solid start to my novel, but I took a break today from my linear pattern to write the end along with a few scenes that happen closer to the end of the story. I know that I can fill in the gaps later.

I also have several random bits that I wrote, that I know go in my novel somewhere, but I have no idea where they go. So I'll just have to figure it out when I find a place that they fit.

I'm jumping on this ship, or rather, I'm writing a bit then skipping a bit and writing a later bit. I'm having issues with my MC, and so am pushing through and trying to find a love for the plot. There's nothing worse than struggling to get to the end of a scene, when you actually know what's happening a couple of pages later. I figure it'll all come together at some point...

The Wolf King - a fairy tale with bite.

No. I wrote 30+ tiny scene descriptions (usually "introduce Pops" or "describe the club" or "two girls get into a fight") and I just pick up a scene and write it. I DID put all the scenes that described things or introduced new people kind of toward the front. If I get to a scene that seems like it needs characters or places I haven't introduced I push it out. But, really, I've introduced everyone now so anything pretty much goes.

In my case I have a feeling that some should be earlier and some later but it doesn't really matter. That is, the girls can fight before or after the reverend comes into the strip club; since neither event depends on the other they can be written in any order.

I think if you are finding that some scenes depend on other scenes then your particular story might not lend itself to this technique.

Tom Sawyer works but a murder mystery would not if that makes sense to you.

Dave

--
In theory, theory is like practice.
In practice, it isn't.

I am doing it right now. Make a scene break of a lot of things with spaces in between and just randomly start a new scene.