I’ve started writing again. The current story is the longest I’ve ever written – it’s approaching the point where it may become a full size book, it’s far longer than the than short stories I’ve written before. It thrown up a few interesting problems I’ve not encountered before.
I don’t write from the beginning all the way through. I know what ‘set pieces’ through out I want to write, as I know the general progress of the story. If I have a good idea I will often start that bit before I forget it, especially if I’m stuck with the earlier story – often one part will inspire another part, and allows me to use tricks such as foreshadowing.
However, because it is so much longer the characters are obviously having to be more rounded. It turns out that they seem to have a life of their own, no matter what I think.
My female lead has talked the male lead into asking her out to dinner. I was as surprised as he was.
THAT WASN’T THE NEXT BIT. Now I have to write a whole restaurant scene because she thought he was going a bit too fast.
Thanks dear. I sometimes wonder whose narrative it is!
The problem appeared to be the way I was writing her speech – it’s the classic joke about how a man can say three words on the phone, because he saw his mate last week, but a woman will speak for an hour because she isn’t seeing her friend until this evening. I felt she was speaking too much like a man.
Once I gave her a less clipped way of speaking; fuller sentences etc, what she said changed, and it became obvious the way she thought was different.
Later the male lead was got drunk by his best mate. I thought it was so he could work through the issues around the woman he loves. Turns out he told me something completely different- why he feels guilty about their other best mate’s death. I didn’t know!
Also I didn’t know how he had died – the official story (which I knew) isn’t the same as what actually happened.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’m sane…
Last Hussar's Barracks 
You are 101% sane. As sane as any other writer …
Really? Good luck with your writing. I found you via the “writing” tag so I think it’s worth mentioning that I’m running a “best advice I’ve learned” series on my blog. I’ve covered Character, Concept and Theme (the latter, just an hr ago). I hope it helps in finishing your novel.
P.S. if you write and re-write and edit this novel to completion, you may NOT be sane afterwards.
It’s a fairly common occurance with many writers. I’ve experienced it myself when writing – sometimes just while writing not-to-be-included scenes just to get a feel for the characters. In that wise I’ve discovered interesting bits of character history and also been completely caught off guard by the way they react to situations or each other.
It’s a lot of fun, really – and why should the readers get all the excitement of discovering interesting stuff about “your” characters?
The bit when Lucy talked Gabriel into taking her out to dinner, he looked up at me and said ‘What do I do?’
I said ‘I don’t know, I wasn’t expecting that. You’d better take her out.’
“Does she like Thai?”
Tap-tap-tap “She will, mate, she will…”