Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

An age-old method of writing long pieces comes from writing short pieces without a plan or outline. The “outline” comes later.

I recently stumbled across a description of writers as Story Quilters. This is not a method of planning or outlining a large piece before writing anything. This is not a method of writing with no aim and discovering what it is that I want to write (some call this “pants-ing” for writing by the seat of your pants).

Consider writing a novel (this method can work with other types of writing including nonfiction). I have a few characters in mind. I have a few settings in mind. I have some ideas. I write a scene with these ideas, characters, settings, etc. I write another scene and another and another.

I have a dozen or so scenes. I piece together these scenes as a person would piece together patches of cloth in a quilt. I adjust the scenes here and there so that they flow into a novel.

This is similar to patching together blog posts into a larger piece.

This quilting is not new. For centuries, writers have sketched pictures, written poems, written speeches, and many other short pieces over time. These short pieces, using lots of hard work, were placed together into a novel.

This works.

Yes, this can be done poorly. Many methods can be used poorly. This is, however, something that has been done quite well in the past and is worth trying.