Goose Wrench Revisited
Our writing armory is fully stocked.
Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to…
Nah. During brainstorming we mainly use the Monkey Wrench and the Goose Wrench. The Monkey Wrench is the tool we reach for when things are going a little to smoothly for our characters. It helps us find ways of causing them trouble. The Goose Wrench is a little more nebulous.
The very nature of brainstorming is for things to be loose. There are no bad ideas (except when there are). Use the Monkey Wrench to your heart’s content and throw everything you can think of into the mix. But eventually you have to start making decisions. Each decision narrows the field of options that can follow, which is what you want. You’re only going to be writing a single narrative (unless you’re doing something experimental), so you need a single plot. At each decision point you make a choice, then you get out your Goose Wrench and tighten it down. But not too far. Until you’re very close to done with your outline, you want to leave a little wiggle room. You want to leave things loosey goosey, which is where the Goose Wrench gets its name. As you continue working, things will start to take their final shape, but until then you want to have some slack so you can take some unexpected turns. And sometimes you’ll discover that you’ve written yourself into a corner (except that since this is all during prewriting, you’ve saved yourself a ton of time and work). You might need to go back and rethink some of your earlier choices, like flipping back in a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, and choosing a different path.
As we talk about the Ghost Novels, we’re making liberal use of the Goose Wrench. How many squid attacks will there be? We originally thought there would be three, but maybe it would be better to change things up and make the middle one an ambush by sharks with frickin’ laser beams. Keep it fresh.
A writing partner is someone who helps you choose your adventure.