It’s one of my favorite places. I can walk here when the weather’s nice (which it usually is). I know the servers and the managers. My poor math skills result in them getting tipped well, and they give me a free dessert or a cup of tea occasionally. It has a nice bar with cushioned seats (don’t underestimate cushioned seats, sitting for more than 45 minutes on a wooden chair is difficult – I think it’s one of the ways certain places keep their clientele from lounging indefinitely).

When it comes to work, I try and do so away from my apartment more than in it. It seems like my days rotate in the same cycle. Usually it’s me at home between breakfast and lunch, a coffee shop in the afternoon, and then the diner (or some other spot) in the evening.

But wherever it is, someone there usually gives me a very specific glance as I’m typing away. Today’s no exception. It’s made only slightly less disheartening due to the fact that it’s a very cute red head, post-workout in a well thought out Lululemon ensemble, with green eyes and a little fuzzy dog whose name I think is “Merlin”.

I’d like to believe she finds the sight of me in my black henley and Clark Kent glasses irresistibly alluring in a Mark Ruffalo kind of way, but I can tell what’s really going on. She knows what’s up, and she’s amused by it.

I’m a writer in a coffee shop. A walking cliché.

Like film school grads working in a video store or super villains who say things like, “Before I kill you, there’s something you should know…”

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for more than a year now, and the experience of writing in the outside world here is much different than where I moved from. There, the ratio of “writers” to normal patrons was much lower. It was like spotting some infamous sea creature or the chupacabra.

But in L.A., the shops and diners are full of writers, their gazes boring into their Macbook screens. It means you blend in more, the looks are tempered, and most people don’t even give you a second glance.

But you still get the first glance, usually. And it always reminds me of this.

Sigh…

The truth is…I can only get so much done at home. Those walls are too familiar. And it’s so quiet. There’s no energy there. For whatever reason, I have to get out of my own space and into somewhere not my own.

I don’t know why that makes a difference, but it totally charges me. I’m much more productive in an environment where there are other people, and conversations are flying past, and its clear the world is spinning around you. So much of creating is tapping into the flow of life, I think, and it seems like it’s only by surrounding myself with it that I can really create at a peak level. Which is ironic, given that it all usually fades into the background when I’m working. It’s like my subconscious feeds off the hustle and bustle, and it sustains me through the process.

And it’s not just writers. I know software engineers, web designers, photographers, production supervisors, professors, even a psychologist, who all prefer to work in places like these. I assume it’s for the same reasons.

The way I see it, belonging to a stereotype isn’t a bad thing. It means you’re on a definite path, one that’s been traveled by similar people before you. It’s kind of comforting, really.

All that really matters is that you know why you’re there. Most of us don’t want a neon sign above our heads brightly flashing “I’m a Writer” for everyone’s edification. We’re there because we need to be, because we feed off the environment and it propels us forward. Writing is such a strange, internal process anyway, don’t start second guessing what works because of a few odd looks.

Besides, there’s nothing wrong with drawing the attention of cute red heads and their dogs, either. Mine just glanced at me again. I give her back a knowing smile. “What’s with all the yoga people in coffee shops? It’s like a cliché.” She smiles back.

“I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible. It’s best that I be as clear about this as I can – I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow.”

-      On Writing, Stephen King

I get uncomfortable around generalities like this, even from someone of King’s prominence.

The plotting vs. stream of consciousness argument in story development is one I hear often among other writers, with each camp bunkering down in defense of their preferred way of working. I never understand why things like this can’t just be resolved with a “what works for me, what works for you” outlook. But I digress…

“Plotting” refers to the act of outlining a story before it’s written, often on paper, but sometimes just in the writer’s mind. The idea is to figure out all the main plot points of a story beforehand, and thus solve the problems raised by them before beginning its creation.

Plotting is a notorious mainstay in the film and TV mediums, where lots of different people (not all of them writers), for better or worse, can get involved in the process. But, even solitary screenwriters working on spec scripts tend to outline, too.

In contrast, stream of consciousness writing is just what it sounds like: writing without an outline, putting the story down on paper as it comes to you. This process is more common to fiction, and, is generally thought of as the norm for “authors”.

It brings to mind images of a frustrated writer sitting in front of a typewriter, a blank piece of paper loaded and ready, waiting for inspiration to punch him in the face. In my experience, that seldom happens.

King is a notorious and vocal opponent of outlining, and he’s certainly prolific enough to prove it can work. He also makes some convincing arguments for his case in On Writing. Interestingly though, I find that his adherence to stream of consciousness writing often results in a meandering, unfocused narrative in his stories, especially in his more recent work, but even going back to the Dark Tower series.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a giant fan of the Gunslinger, but, reading it, I’ve never once gotten the impression that King in any way knew where he was going with that story, and I feel it shows. I was always frustrated by its seeming lack of direction, but it’s highly possible I’m in the minority there. I’ve heard others defend the Dark Tower’s loose narrative as part of what makes it feel so “dreamlike”, and I can’t totally dismiss that argument.

Stream of consciousness writing can also get you into trouble, often times letting you paint yourself into a narrative corner.

A pretty stellar example of this is the TV show LOST, which threw in everything but the kitchen sink in regards to random plot points and mysteries, implying they were all, somehow, connected in a truly cohesive and planned out way.

I think looking at the show’s final season, if not the final episode, indicates that the writers were “streaming” most of their story as they went, and had an unwritten agreement between themselves that they would just “figure it all out when they got to the end”. I don’t mean this to be too deep a criticism, I loved LOST, and it was, at times, without question, the best written show on television. But you can see the problems operating without a safety net can get you in.

There are, of course, true masters that really do produce incredibly compelling and detailed work all from an outpouring of spontaneous creativity. William Gibson, Elmore Leonard, and Neal Stephenson all come to mind. But there are just as many examples of amazing artists working from the outlining methodology. George R.R. Martin and Robert Jordan, for instance (though, admittedly, when you’re working with worlds as large as Westeros and ‘Randland’, you probably have to).

There’s one statement in King’s above quote he uses as a justification for stream of consciousness writing, but to me actually makes a further case for plotting. It is this:

“…our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning…”

It’s actually a sentiment I very much agree with, and, honestly, one of the main reasons I like plot heavy narratives. My life is enough of an unpredictable, ambiguous experience, that I very much find relief reading stories that are heavily structured.

By that, I don’t mean “predictable”, I enjoy surprises and twists as much as anyone else, but I enjoy stories where it’s clear there’s a creator in the driver’s seat. Even if I don’t know where we’re going, I can trust it’s intentional.

For my part, I believe both processes have merit and value, and I usually end up using both. My system tends to break down like this:

I spend a good amount of time outlining a story, plot point to point, in in-depth detail. For a novel, this process can take a month or more (though, it probably should take less time – I’m an advanced level procrastinator), a screenplay or comic script, much less.

The advantage is I figure out a lot of the problems with a story as I go through it (like, why would my character walk backwards through that dark hallway, why don’t the ninjas all attack their target at once instead of one at a time, why did someone design this giant combat robot with a self-destruct switch?). This also gives me an opportunity to see my characters’ journey and growth from a bird’s eye view, which is something I struggle with as a writer. Plot and world building come very natural to me, while dialogue and character require more effort. Plotting lets me get a jump on the issues I need to focus on, and the messages I want to illustrate.

But, for me, plotting is only fifty percent of the process.

From there, writing begins, and so does the other fifty percent. As I begin to write, I follow along with my pre-designed outline, but am open to letting the story evolve and morph as it’s created…and it always does. Sometimes, it takes radically different turns than I originally plotted, which is a good thing.

Because, at the end of the day, I agree with King. Stories, in some way, should make themselves, and it’s our job as writers to give them a place to grow. If my characters don’t take the reins at some point, and start walking down their own path, something isn’t working. I just need an initial direction and goal to set them towards, or it all breaks down.

If you’re a writer, what side of the fence do you fall on? Or do you straddle it like me? If you’re an avid reader, whose works do you enjoy more? The “plotters” or the “streamers”? And yes, I just made those terms up. Remember you were here when they entered the vernacular.

“I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic – with its vast fossil hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice caps. And I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain.”

-      At the Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft

I’m very drawn to projects that actively try to make their audience feel like what they’re watching is (or was at one point) real.

The “found footage” genre in movies is an obvious example. Titles like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, as well as the more recent Chronicle and Paranormal Activity, all try to create something which appears as if it actually occurred. No one’s fooled, of course. We’re paying $10 to go see the thing in a theater, after all, but if it’s done right, there are moments where you can let yourself sort of forget the reality of the thing and buy into the possibility of something fantastic. If you want to…

Games are other obvious examples, primarily because a lot of them are actively trying to give you a truly virtual, interactive experience. Designers and companies like Ken Levine and Bethesda have dedicated their careers to the idea, and we’re all better off for it. A world without Bioshock or Skyrim isn’t a world I want to be in.

But, interestingly, these types of stylistic choices stretch back much farther than you might think. There are examples all throughout classic speculative fiction.

One of my favorite writers, H. P. Lovecraft, seemed to also be a fan of fabricated realism in stories. If you’re a fan, you know how visual and eerie the material is, which directly stems from his love of his story world. The Mythos was something he clearly enjoyed working in, and his attempts to make it feel weighted and real only add to its texture.

That and the fact that he was probably a little crazy…

Many of Lovecraft’s stories (and I’m sure there are other examples that pre-date him, I’m not suggesting he invented the idea) are literary versions of the “found footage” genre. A large portion of them weren’t written in a narrative style, but rather created as if they were the letters or journal entries of real people.

The effect is the same. Consciously you know what you’re reading is fiction, but the format allows you, should you so desire, to drop into the story in a real way. It allows you to believe. And belief can be a powerful thing.

Poe toyed with the idea in several stories, and another Edgar (Rice Burroughs) went so far as to write himself into his own yarns. Burroughs introduces his famous (and awesome, by the way) John Carter stories as “factual” accounts of a real life individual who had given him the manuscripts the reader is about to absorb.

And, of course, there’s one other, incredibly obvious example. Though not classic fiction per se (though it is inspired by it), one my favorites is Orson Welles’ adaptation of The War of the Worlds. For me, it’s a “catalyst”, one of a large group of things that led me to want to write my own stories, and it’s been a big influence on numerous other creators as well. I’m actually working on a project in a similar vein, tied to Conquered Earth, with a few filmmaker friends of mine, and every time I sit down with it, I can’t help but hear, “We take you now to Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.”

My English teacher in High School had the original broadcast on tape for her students to take home if they wanted. I think I was the only one that did, and I checked it out over and over. Even though it was dated, I loved the idea of experiencing something fantastic as if it were real.

Imagination has always been a powerful force for me, something that allowed me to be the characters I read in comics or books, to explore their worlds, live similar lives, have similar adventures. I think imagination, and more specifically, the suspension of disbelief, is the main reason I started writing.

There’s always a moment when I’m working that I forget I’m at a computer, tapping keys. For a few minutes at a time, I’m with my characters, wherever they are. It feels real, I believe it. And, like I said, belief is a powerful thing. It’s what keeps me coming back.

What films or books or games have managed to give you a moment of “belief” as you experienced them? I’m sure there’s tons out there I’ve never heard of.

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