Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Difference between revisions

* Before Tite Kubo, Akira Toriyama did ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' 98% like this. Some few things he thought ahead, and he did plan each chapter before drawing it, but otherwise he improvised each week how to follow the story. Sadly, some fans seem to think he had a carefully planned plot that [[Executive Meddling]] didn't let him do - not true at all.

* The writers of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' admitted, regarding the [[Gainax Ending|Gainax First Scene]] of the series, that they "lost that plot thread somewhere".

* Osamu Tezuka wrote ''Ambassador Atom'' (the prototype for ''[[Astro Boy]]'') as he went along. Notably, he had no idea who "Atom" would be, until he later decided to write him as a robot built to replace Tenma's deceased son. He would later [[Retool]] Atom into his current incarnation, and subsequently redid the story as an episode of ''Astro Boy''.

 

* [[David Lynch]] infamously wrote ''[[Inland Empire]]'' scene by scene during filming. What effect this had on the film's [[Mind Screw|(lack of) coherence]] is up to debate. Seeing as it's David Lynch, however, [[Crazy Awesome|it really doesn't matter too much]].

* ''[[Magical Mystery Tour|Magical]] [[The Beatles (band)|Mystery]] [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|Tour]]'' is an excellent example.

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' movie trilogy was shot like that. Even as the cameras kept rolling, scenes and plots were being rewritten again and again - some versions of the script reached not just the double digits, but went up to 40 and above. Actors frequently got their lines only at the night before the shooting and major revisions resulted in whole scenes being re-shot. Ironically, the writers insist that each iteration was ultimately closer to Tolkien's work and even stated that some of the remaining controversial changes might have been gone too, had they not reached a deadline by then.

* Befitting its chaotic production schedule, [[Apocalypse Now]] was made largely with this and [[Throw It In]]. Francis Ford Coppola didn't even have an ending, as he'd considered John Milius's ending (Willard joins Kurtz, and the film ends with Kurtz shooting at American war planes bombing his temple while screaming about his erection) ridiculous.

* [[Isaac Asimov]] has gone on record stating that, while he usually has an end in mind, he almost never has any idea how he'll get there.

* [[Garth Nix]] says this is how he writes - most of his worldbuilding is made up on the spot.

** [[The Green Mile]] may be his best example of this. It was originally released in installments. At the time the first installment was released to the public, he hadn't even figured out the ending yet... but still a set release scheduled for it.

* [[Cory Doctorow]] wrote ''[[Little Brother]]'' in eight days.

* The Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe [[Extruded Book Product|churned out novels for Badger Books]] on the basis of a book cover, a title and a very short deadline. Badger's policies mean it's impossible to tell exactly how many he wrote, but the estimate works out at one 158 page book every twelve days. To manage this, he dictated into a reel to reel tape recorder, then shipped the tapes off to a pool of typists for transcription. To hit the word target, he would [[Padding|pad out]] the books with philosophical discussions, mundane detail and [[Department of Redundancy Department|redundant descriptions]] (robots: "Metal things. Metal things that could think. Thinking metal things"), but then could be told that he had only three pages left to wrap up the story, so he had to [[Ass Pull|pull out]] a [[Deus Ex Machina]]. Despite, or perhaps because of all this, Fanthorpe's work has picked up a [[So Bad It's Good]] following.

* [[Douglas Adams]] wrote ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (novel)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' this way largely - throw out tons of ideas, then return later when it seems like one of them is funny or could be made relevant (like the potted plant saying "Oh no, not again"). As you can imagine, Adams was terrible at deadlines and finished the first book at that page because his publisher was furious. He once remarked, "Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank page until your forehead starts to bleed."

* Robert B. Parker of the [[Spenser]], [[Sunny Randall]] and Jesse Stone series wrote like this, and compared it to being like the detectives of his novels never knowing what was coming next.

<!-- %%Do not re-add Lost. Word of God has disproven this. Even if the exact details weren't planned out, the team worked out an end date of a sixth season during production of season 3. -->

* Parodied in a ''[[Kids in The Hall]]'' sketch, which warns the viewer that it was "written in haste," showing the writer frantically mashing a keyboard trying to finish it within the deadline. The scene is filled with nonsensical actions and garbled dialogue caused by the typos, such as a man taking off his "rubber boobs" and sitting down on a "chain."

** Matt, his partial [[Author Avatar]], does this in-universe in ''[[Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip]]''.

* Many committee-led series will change plot and emphasise characters depending on audience responses to broadcast episodes. Sylar and Hiro in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' received such a favourable response they were given much larger roles in the long run {{spoiler|including Sylar being allowed to live beyond the Season 1 finale.}}

* The writers of "[[Glee]]" seem to be really, very, extremely guilty of this, partially because of their fondness for [[Pandering to The Fanbase]] and partially because they think of the show as a "pop-culture tribute" and basically just write around whatever's currently popular or of note in some way. And they also just [[Shrug of God|change their minds]] a lot, like when Ryan Murphy broke up Quinn and Sam because he "got bored" with them. Overall, this keeps the humor of the show extremely up-to-date and relevant, but it also leads to many, many [[Out-of-Character Moment|out-of-character moments]] that some viewers find annoying.

* A relatively small point: [[Suddenly Ethnicity|declaring Elaine not to be Jewish]] in ''[[Seinfeld]]'' was something [[Larry David]] or [[Jerry Seinfeld]] or ''someone'' had literally just thought of when the opportunity came to write about "[[Shiksa Goddess|Shiksappeal]]." She had previously been considered by the writers and inferred by the audience to be Jewish.

* ''[[24]]'' was notoriously written on the fly, with the writers starting each season with practically no concrete idea where the thing was going to end up. Notably averted by Season 7, due to the 2007 Writers Strike and a year-long delay, resulting in a much more cohesive, planned-out storyline for that season.

 

* ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' is written without a [[Strip Buffer]], so the creators can stay up-to-date on gaming news. Different reason for the trope, same idea. It helps that it's a gag-a-day strip, rather than needing any sort of continuity.

* ''[[Bob and George]]'', especially at the beginning, when it was just filler.

** ''[[MS Paint Adventures]]'', especially in the earlier adventures. The latest adventure, ''[[Homestuck]]'', is the only one to have any sort of planning before being written, having started with the four central characters, their [[Weapon of Choice|weapons of choice]], some [[Inventory Management Puzzle|general]] [[Item Crafting|game]] [[Reality Warper|mechanics]], and a handful of plot points, including an ending, worked out beforehand. The rest of the universe-spanning, time-traveling, chronology-fucking, nearly 4000 pages of extremely convoluted plot has been made along the way.

** ''[[Silent Hill Promise]]'' is written similarly to ''[[MS Paint Adventures]]'', updating daily using commands from readers.