Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Difference between revisions

Like most things, this can be done well, or badly. [[The Chris Carter Effect]] and [[Kudzu Plot]] is what happens when Writing By The Seat Of Your Pants leaves too many loose plot threads.

 

 

Please only add examples where the author ''admitted'' to doing this. This is not a page for speculation.

* [[Charles de Lint]] writes that way and refers to it an "organic" style of writing.

* [[Terry Pratchett]] usually writes with a plan, but in an interview said that while writing the assassin's "driving test" in ''[[Discworld/Pyramids|Pyramids]]'', he had absolutely no idea how it would unfold, and consequently it is one of his most favorite moments in the ''[[Discworld]]'' series.

* [[Haruki Murakami]] swears to this type of writing, never knowing the ending when he begins a story. [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|It shows]]

* [[Stanislaw Lem]] wrote ''[[Solaris]]'' that way. It is considered to be his best book which is saying something, because his other works are nothing short of brilliance.

* 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."

* Aaron Sorkin does this. There's a story that when he was writing [[The West Wing]], he needed President Bartlet to be lying in bed for a scene—and so gave the character ''multiple sclerosis.''

* 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.

* [[Interactive Comic]]s:

** ''[[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.

* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' gets points for being a Monday through Friday comic that is not only drawn without a [[Strip Buffer]], but is written and drawn by Jeph Jacques literally the night before. Sometimes if he's struck by a burst of inspiration, he'll do two comics in a day, waiting to post the second one, and sometimes if he's stuck for an idea he won't start drawing until 3 AM...

* This is [[Walkyverse|David]] [[Dumbing of Age|Willis']] method of writing, as he goes into detail about [http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/21196582462/whats-your-general-routine-for-writing-drawing-a here]

== Western Animation ==

 

* ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' episodes never had real scripts. The creators went straight to storyboards and improvised each subsequent image.

* ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'' began production without an ending.

[[Category:Trivia Trope]]

[[Category:Script Speak]]