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Writer to Writer

By B.J. Apostol

The Chicken or the Egg: Which is YOUR Writing Method?

Which comes first: story, synopsis or outline? Get a group of writers together and you might as well be asking the age-old question of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Recently, several members of my writer's group shared a completed scene outline and/or synopsis of their works in progress. These amazing individuals had a firm handle on their stories from beginning to end even though they had not yet begun to write. I was stunned. How could that be? I was into the sixteenth chapter of my novel and lacked even the vaguest outline. As for the ending -- it was, as my mother used to say, "just a twinkle in my mind's eye."

Being a relatively insecure person like many writers, I was immediately convinced that I was going about the writing process all wrong. Yet when I thought about going back and doing an outline my eyes crossed and my bones turned to ice water. Outlines were a tool of torture teachers pushed on me in school; like imagination girdles, they reined in creativity and stifled possibilities. My progress came to a standstill -- how could I push on when my work was doomed to failure?

With the guidance of my fellow writers at WVU, I came to view outlines differently over the next few weeks. Outlines were a road map on which I could plot the course of the story from point A to point B. A map can help keep wayward writers from wandering off track and ending up on page two hundred with no real plot to speak of. Even I could see the advantage of that. I dubbed this the Chicken Method, since the story is a mature creation before the actual labor of writing begins.

Having seen the light and accepted the merit of the Chicken method, I looked again at my own work. Here I had sixteen chapters and counting without an outline because I preferred letting a story grow from an embryonic idea right under my fingers. The technique felt natural to me and had worked before for short stories; so rather than label it "wrong," I decided to dub this the Egg Method and explore its merits.

Like twigs are formed into a nest, the Egg Method lays words onto paper and keeps them warm with hurried strokes of the keyboard. Excitement and mystery are its motivations, and I just love solving a good mystery. How about you? Ask yourself: could you watch a movie with the same intense, edge-of-your-seat suspense if you knew in advance how it all came out? Would you spend hours reading a book if you already knew the end? If your answer is no, then you may have a natural tendency to write using the Egg Method.

I'll use one of my short stories as an illustration of how the Egg Method comes together for me. One afternoon as I waited to pick up my daughter from high school, my glance fell on a tall, willow-thin teen standing with her back to me as she talked with a balding old man. Flowing brown hair hung past her hips, rippling and glistening like the reflections from a waterfall as she moved her hands in graceful accompaniment to a conversation. A mental shutter clicked, capturing the image just as my daughter got in the truck. Off we drove to run the afternoon's errands, the girl forgotten. Later that night I sat at my computer with a melancholy notes of an aria flowing around me. Salce, the vocalist, sang in Italian, "willow." I sat up straight as the image of the girl clicked firmly into place. Salce. Yes, of course that was her name.

Heart pounding with excitement at the first whiff of a story idea, I began to asked myself questions. What if she's talking to the teacher because she doesn't fit in? What if she's as different from the others as she appeared to me? The other students shun her, maybe are even afraid of her. Why would this be so? I was hooked! My need to discover what could be so different about beautiful Salce became my impetus to write. The opening scene of my story was born. With no clue where it might take me, I wrote right through to the end some eight thousand words later.

Lest I paint too rosy a picture, I should mention that while the Egg Method works for me most of the time, I have several unfinished and meandering stories which prove that the method is risky. Not all eggs hatch into chickens, some are just rotten eggs no matter how long they've incubated.

So which method is best, the chicken or the egg?

The Chicken Method is tried and true, has an organization that allows it to bypass the awkward stages that can emerge during the Egg Method's growth process, and you almost never end up with scrambled eggs. This method is preferred by mystery writer Evan Marshall, designer of a structured novel writing system called The Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan is well-known and has worked for many budding writers by giving them a clear map to follow. Just remember that following a charted course too tenaciously can make it all too easy to overlook the treasures a side trip might yield.

If outlines still feel like a ball and chain around your neck, as they did for me, don't despair. Take the risk and go for the Egg Method. If you'd like more proof that it can produce outstanding results, read a few books by horror novelist Stephen King. Then check out his book On Writing and take note of the writing method he chooses to use. You might be surprised.

B.J. Apostol is a single mother working as a webmaster/graphics designer in San Diego, California. When not writing, her time is spent breeding and showing Bull Terriers and Miniature Bull Terriers in both conformation and obedience. A WVU member since November 1999, B.J. has had an article published in San Diego's Computer Edge magazine and is currently at work on a horror novel.