How do you write?

[mousemelon]

Do you write in sequence or do you bounce around? If you bounce around, how to you knit the story together when you're 'finished'? I usually write in sequence but have been bouncing around a ton this year and it's making it hard for me to really get connected with the characters. 

[nsl]

I write in sequence because the last time I tried to bounce around I, like you, struggled to get inside my characters' heads.

[Pom]

I write in sequence.

I may jot down a paragraph or so to use later on in the story, but not entire scenes or chapters.

[Deleted]

I mostly write in sequence, because I can't handle jumping from scene to scene. I have had times in other projects where I've all of a sudden gotten a scene in my brain, or I figure out exactly how I want the story to end, at which point I'll jot down the scene really quick and make a note in my notebook to add the scene into my document when I get to that point in the novel. Doesn't happen very often, but it has happened in the past.

[fatamy]

This novel is totally in sequence.

My favorite novel I've done for nano I wrote the middle, the part I was so inspired to write, and then finished, then when back and wrote the beginning.

I didn't have any singular part of my story this year that excited me that much so I'm doing start to finish.

[anastasia517]

Like I mentioned earlier, I write in sequence because my characters always manage to surprise me and things come together in ways I don't expect. This is true no matter how well I know my characters and their fates. I could go back and edit it all later but I am bad about editing.

I have skipped a scene on occasion. One of them was from 2009 and I still don't know how to fix it. Another year (2013) I had a bunch of connected short stories, more or less, with different people showing how they came to be the people who are part of the group the story is about. That one was easier to skip around in because even though I ordered the, chronologically skipping one person didn't affect how well I knew other characters.

[cleosprite]

I bounce around. I get bored, and I get scenes stuck in my head and it's easier for me to write them out even if they aren't in sequence. Plus, for me, once I've written them out, it's easier for me to see how the characters got to that point, and then I can go back and knit things together.