Musings on Subconscious Writing

"An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners' names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought." ~ Mignon McLaughlin

I've had a few odd experiences with my writing lately, and I've started calling it my "subconscious writing work" for lack of a better term.

One thing I've been doing a lot of lately is side-story (as my friend Tony calls it). I've been writing pieces of Arion from other characters' points of view or scenes that are completely off-camera. I've done this for a while, and while it's fun for me, I've always thought it was... not a waste of time, but not always the best use of my time. Why, exactly, am I playing with a scene from Isis's point of view when it will never be in the book?

The other day I realized exactly why I wrote a particular scene between Isis & Josephine, and it wasn't what I thought. I thought I was writing it to explain to myself what Josephine knew & didn't know about the relationship between Arion & Isis. I didn't realize it actually told me something very important about Isis, something I need to know to write Mordagrin, until a few days later when I re-read it and noticed her reactions.

Another side-story scene I wrote is something that had basically been there from the beginning, but 1) I hadn't wanted to go there and 2) Mordecai wouldn't exactly let me until recently. I think part of it had to do with some comments I got back from Tiffany Schmidt and Melissa Joy Adams about Arion's emotional life, and I knew there was an "answer," I just hadn't figured it out yet. Then I realized what Mordecai had actually done in that library and, well, it just came together. I think I actually smacked myself in the forehead over that one...

But it isn't even just this kind of thing that's been fascinating me lately. My playlists are becoming more and more where I'm finding character motivations. Not so much for Arion, because that was really the first one I made and I'd chosen most of the songs for very specific purposes. But when I listen to the songs on the Mordagrin and Wings & Fangs: Bewitched playlists, where often I just throw songs on a whim, sometimes I get a little freaked out by how well they fit before I've even written the scene.

For example, I started adding songs like "I Just Can't Live a Lie" by Carrie Underwood, "Driftin' Away" by Garth Brooks (Chris Gaines CD) and "Cry" by Kelly Clarkson to Mordagrin before I had any idea about the emotional conflicts I was going to find in certain relationships. And then there's songs in the Wings & Fangs: Bewitched list that have let me actually get to know David, who has to be one of the quietest MCs I've ever had. And these are songs that have been on this list over a year, ones that I thought I added more in relation to D than David, but now David's owning them.

I've posted this quote before, but I wanted to throw it up again, cause it's part of where I got my terminology and oh-so-fitting:
"...I discovered that if I trusted my subconscious, or imagination, whatever you want to call it, and if I made the characters as real and honest as I could, then no matter how complex the pattern being woven, my subconscious would find ways to tie it together -- often doing things far more complicated and sophisticated than I could with brute conscious effort. I would have ideas for 'nodes', as I think of them -- story or character details that have lots of potential connections to other such nodes -- and even though I didn't quite understand, I would plunk them in. Two hundred pages later, everything would back-fit, and I'd say, "Ah, that's why I wrote that." ~ Tad Williams


Anyone care to share anything they've found this way? Just typed something & had it work itself out or in or whatever? I know a lot of people on my friends list are more pantsers than plotters, so I figure some of you have got to have good stories!



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