Wednesday, May 6, 2020

IWSG - May 2020


I love this quote by George RR Martin:
“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”
I definitely started as a gardener, but I'm slowly learning to harness the creativity in more structure. What about you?



14 comments:

  1. That's a great analogy. I'm definitely an architect.

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    1. I think you've mentioned before about being a plotter. :)

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  2. It is always very obvious in the writing style, especially to us translators who dissect every sentence and structure. Gardeners usually, not always, do not follow the main rules of drama - introduction, plot, highlight, twist etc. and are more messy than the structured writers. Gardeners also tend to waste a lot of plot on just empty fillers, while architects are more careful with precious space. I do love structure as it usually speaks of a writer who controls what he writes.

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  3. Architect through and through...

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    1. I learning to become more so. I have a cozy mystery series in mind that will definitely require an architect. :D

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  4. I'm somewhere in between a gardener and an architect. I'll have a bed made, I'll know what kind of seeds I'm planting, and I'll probably plant them in a specific place. I will water and weed. But other than that, I don't do much except watch and wait and see what comes up.

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    1. This is kind of me. I'll know if I want a climbing rose as opposed to a bush rose and what kind of fertilizer it needs. But a lot of the story comes to me as I'm writing it.

      I used to joke around that my first draft is really a 50,000 word outline. lol

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  5. Great quote. I'm a hybrid of them both.

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  6. I think I'm inbetween. I know where I start and end, but the middle can grow a bit.

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  7. What a great description of the two different types of writers! I keep vacillating between the two. Wish I just pick one, already. Haha!

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