I followed your same journey, but in reverse. I started with a plotted novel and then decided to discovery write the next one, and I'm glad I did. There are strengths and weaknesses to both techniques, and since then I've done my best to double-dip as much as possible.
I'm intrigued by this collapsing wave method (a reference to the physics phenomenon/computer science algorithm, I presume?) I'm curious to see how it would work for a character-driven novel. Those tend to be motivated by changes in emotional state rather than plot events, but I suppose you could map someone's internal journey the same way you map the movements of armies or the stages of a heist. This might be a case where writing Draft 0 first is helpful, since you can get a clearer sense of the protagonist's emotion in each scene, and THEN map out all possible responses.
P.S. I recognized the Skyrim poster in your grad school thesis photo :P
This is amazingly helpful. I've been kind of stumbling through, kind of cycling back and forth between trying to find the plot as I go and trying to have a semblance of an outline, and my outline is very "and then" instead of "resulting in." Going to take a step back and use some of this.
I'm so glad! and yeah I forgot to mention the "resulting in" language was lifted from a talk that the South Park writers gave to film students. It's been circulating on tiktok/reels recently.
Let me know how it goes and if any questions crop up!
I followed your same journey, but in reverse. I started with a plotted novel and then decided to discovery write the next one, and I'm glad I did. There are strengths and weaknesses to both techniques, and since then I've done my best to double-dip as much as possible.
I'm intrigued by this collapsing wave method (a reference to the physics phenomenon/computer science algorithm, I presume?) I'm curious to see how it would work for a character-driven novel. Those tend to be motivated by changes in emotional state rather than plot events, but I suppose you could map someone's internal journey the same way you map the movements of armies or the stages of a heist. This might be a case where writing Draft 0 first is helpful, since you can get a clearer sense of the protagonist's emotion in each scene, and THEN map out all possible responses.
P.S. I recognized the Skyrim poster in your grad school thesis photo :P
This is amazingly helpful. I've been kind of stumbling through, kind of cycling back and forth between trying to find the plot as I go and trying to have a semblance of an outline, and my outline is very "and then" instead of "resulting in." Going to take a step back and use some of this.
I'm so glad! and yeah I forgot to mention the "resulting in" language was lifted from a talk that the South Park writers gave to film students. It's been circulating on tiktok/reels recently.
Let me know how it goes and if any questions crop up!