Surprised Turn In Your Novel

[clowdiwithachance]

I was just scrolling through my library and I started wondering if any of these stories had some surprising turns when they were being written. So, I was wondering if the way you thought you wanted to go with a story or a chapter changed in the writing process or if you read a novel and didn't expect its change.

I can definitely say that writing some of my chapters there were a lot of changes because a lot or the time I believe a story writes itself whether you want it to go the way you want it. Its got a mind of its own, y'know?

Have any authors surprised you? Or did you surprise yourself as an author?

[grimnir]

This is maybe not the kind of answer you want, because for Soft Rains I was pretty much making it up as I went along (I am a disaster who doesn't have the good sense to plan a story before writing it).
But about halfway through the story all the pieces just fell together and I knew where it was going and how it had to end. It was an inevitable conclusion that everything had been leading towards, and I honestly hadn't planned for it at all.

[sararosebr]

One series I put on hiatus I have completely rewrote the first arc, and especially first chapter at least three times because I never liked how it progressed after I tried to fix it from a beginning I despised after having it sit for a few weeks. So I some how went from enemies slowly becoming allies, to it more forced to survived, to an uneasy but quick alliance for the good of both (one more so than the other). Still not sure, but it is a lot better and was able to do some awesome world building I couldn't do before.
Which is another change I made to it, going from a way to European emulation that made no sense for the location because I was lazy and it's what all the nerds were doing, to a proper and more Asian/African inspiration that is way more fun to talk about. The whole world became more colorful and vibrant and it was so much more fun to describe overall.
And the current one I have on Tapas had a few chapter that were going to be an odd Halloween type special until I realized it was too dark compared to the rest, so I wrote it as the story told me to, then kept following the voices of the characters until I outlined the rest of the story into an entire novel...and am now waiting for the sequel to start talking. (Which honestly is the normal cycle of how my novels germinate.)

[silverraven0]

For years, I've been in love with Agatha Christie novels like ten little niggers/ten little Indians/and then there were none, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a novel that I forgot the English original name but involving a kid named Josephine and others. If you haven't read her works yet, just try read it (or heard and watch the movie...), I absolutely recommend you her novels because they're simply amazing (and yes, I love Poirot more than Holmes).

And as an author, I haven't made it that far and reached the 'twist' yet, but it'll reach that part, eventually, because I'm such a twisted person. :3

[TheFalseVyper]

I mainly do comics, but my story was originally written as a novel!

I can't tell you how many times I've had to rewrite chapters due to the fact that my characters, more or less, took on a mind of their own and I could no longer justify writing the chapter a certain way.

[Zaboem]

Nope, that is just not how my noggin works. I write out my outline. Some parts of the initial outline are more fleshed out than others. Then I go through the outline and fill in the blanks. If I get a better idea while I am writing, I would not oppose a change, but that has not happened yet.

Writing a suspenseful is a little like telling a joke. Before I start, I already know the punchline. I can tell the story and change it as you go maybe, but my punchline is predestined, entirely set in stone. Getting to that punchline is the entire point of the joke, so I'm not going to change the joke enough that the punchline won't fit when I get there.

[JustifiedReality]

I have a very specific and recent example from personal experience, actually! Yesterday, I updated chapter five of my novel Collision Course and I was anticipating my main character to analyze the conflict he was presented with and come up with a solution. Instead, he ended up having what essentially chalked up to a breakdown, and I'm not sure how it happened! It just... developed that way. Luckily, this change won't alter the rest of the story unduly, but you can imagine my surprise when I read through it again and realized I had to rewrite the next chapter!

[JustifiedReality]

I almost wish my brain worked as smoothly as yours, haha. The good thing about being taken away while I'm writing, though, is the fact that typically, the reactions and dialogue I end up with become more realistic and genuine than what I was imagining to begin with. I used to live by outlines, but now I make very, very generalized outlines for an entire novel that is basically a bulletin list of "this happened lol, I don't know How but we'll figure it out later.. maybe after that this funny thing happens? that'd be cool" and it's really just my ramblings paired with how I want to begin, climax, and end.

At the end of the day, I suppose everyone has their own way of writing, even if some ways sound... really unorganized.

[Lady_DarkStar]

Stories taking turns you didn't expect, yep that happened, is happening, happens every time I turn around. I let my stories grow organically, gave up on plotting years ago because all that ever got me was dull, flat, crap. Perhaps the most extreme example of a story turning on me was The Weeping Willow. It was originally a tragedy fantasy sort of thing that didn't involve people at all, then this mother and daughter stuck their noses into the story, and the whole thing changed. Sometimes characters just wont be ignored. I have to say I think the story ended up be not only completely different from what I thought it was going to be, but also richer.

[Raven_C]

Oh same here. Haha. I outline everything. Not every single minute detail, mind you - but I like to know all the major things that will happen from start to finish; I list out scenes and every conflict of a scene that leads to the next. Some people get by in being “pantsers” (as they like to call them), but I’m definitely a “plotter” (though not a strict one. I still like to make enough wiggle room to allow for organic changes).

I’m not so strict in outlining so there’s definitely been times where I’m like, “Oh cool, I never thought to approach it this way” although nothing major that I would count as “surprising.”

[YaoiParadise]

Abso-hecking-lutely.

I can't outline to save my life, so a lot of times there are unexpected character-driven events I didn't expect. I mostly work with an an idea for an end point, but the journey getting there can change a lot.

My biggest project (at least on Tapas) was supposed to be some bs fluffy omegaverse romance with no substance to it at all. It uh... kind of took a turn of it's own, lol, and now I'm almost done with season 2 and it's gotten rather dark.

I know some authors like their outlines, but I love the random twists and turns my novels or series take because I don't plan (like my standalone book turned into a 12+ book series, all because in the second to last chapter I got it in my head to throw my main character out the window of a 40 story building).

[grimnir]

I love that the replies in this thread are either "I carefully construct my story according to this detailed blueprint" or "my story wrote itself, I'm just along for the ride".

[Raven_C]

my standalone book turned into a 12+ book series, all because in the second to last chapter I got it in my head to throw my main character out the window of a 40 story building).

Oh man this is why I don’t like doing things on the fly because i dont want it to turn into a super long series. That’s why i quit my old comic since everything was done without planning. But i sure admire people who can write epic stories naturally.

[darkone4587]

Honestly the overall story never changes, but small details here and there change because the story flow feels better with the change than without.

[Azeddy]

I definitely have had a lot of novels that did this to me. With the one I've posted here, Object and Objective, the twist was literally in almost every chapter. Because I wrote it based on a list of writing prompts, I never knew what the next chapter was going to have to incorporate. It was like discovering the story as I went! (While fighting to maintain continuity, of course... which was a great exercise).

[TheYaoiEmpire]

My novel has many twists, and one in a later chapter includes the demon that is my banner dancing through the streets with a corpse while singing a vaudeville number, I didn't expect to write that but I did and it's hilarious.