Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Concurrent vs. Sequential Writing

Concurrent vs. Sequential Writing

In reading the outlines of my students I have made another interesting observation. It is interesting for me… it might be “Old Hat” to my readers who have an understanding of many things that I find new and intriguing.

It is often said that men tend to be sequential thinkers while women have more facility with multitasking. Be that as it may, I see in the outlines a tendency for my students to write sequentially while many more experienced writers delve into concurrent events that meet up further down the story line.

Now I would not recommend having too many of these concurrent threads operating in a novel but I think that two or maybe three is not such a bad idea. One example might be where the antagonist doesn’t show up to begin with. Where this is the case the writer might consider giving the reader an early glimpse of the world that the antagonist operates and lives in. This technique is a form of “Foreshadowing” and the reader assumes (I hope correctly) that a confrontation is coming between the Central Character and his/her nemesis
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On the subject of antagonists, it is amazing to me that my students often fail to have one in strong evidence. I am becoming more and more convinced that villains are more an operational or strategic aspect of writing…. That they do not germinate readily and require a more conscious and concerted effort to insure they get their necessary face time with the reader.

In the Exploratory Writing Workshop (EWW) I find myself searching for evidence of this villainy at work and seeing it only sprinkled Helter-Skelter about. Perhaps I need to include it as an operational consideration, i.e. “Where in the chapter threads is the antagonist making his/her presence felt?”… Or strategically, i.e. “Is the villainy spread consistently across the story line playing a repetitive role in the conflict/crisis development?”

In Tactical Writing which I point out, tends to flow naturally, to most talented writers, the Antagonist’s contribution tends to be more sporadic. It doesn’t seem to want to happen of its own volition and so as in Operational and Strategic writing must be manually forced into the fabric of the Novel
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Those who have been involved in the EWW have heard this sort of talk before and understand what I am trying to say regarding Tactical, Operational and Strategic Writing. Like a garment maker I see the pieces cut out and lying on the workbench or pinned to the manikins.

For everyone I see a composition that is promising and it remains to be seen who will take the ball to the hoop. As coach I’ve explained the game plan, such as I can, and it passes now to the players to take the process and make it work.