: Chapters - Writing Order I, like most writers, have a number of ideas about my current work in progress. I know how some chapters in the story will play out almost precisely (the ending

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Agree completely with MissMonicaE. I would say so in a comment, but I have no reputation and so forth as this is my first post on a StackExchange site. In fact, I created an account specifically to comment on MissMonicaE's answer, but it turns out that I am forced to post an answer myself.

My personal experience:
I had a story idea in my head for twenty-five years that I had started to write over a dozen times, and never got past the first chapter. Every time, I blew my creative load stressing about writing this part so I can write the next part. Every time, I got frustrated or lost interest, and walked away.

What finally worked was to write everything I knew about the story, separated by chapter breaks. Then I went back and wrote transitions--I don't like the word "filler" because there shouldn't be any; all of the words in your story should contribute to the story or character development. In some cases, I had to change things I had already written, but I suspect I would have had to do that anyway. In fact, my "final battle" ultimately became an epic failure and major setback to my characters, requiring more story and a new "final battle". The last 30% of my novel was unplanned, and I got two more major characters out of the endeavor, as well as the realization that a minor character wasn't so minor after all. To me, it's better to have to be creative to connect the parts that I know than it is to try to remember the parts that I know while I'm struggling to find a way to transition between them. I had great ideas about events and dialogue for later, when my characters were on an island facing off against a group of sirens, but they were still in the desert and I had no idea how they were even going to get to the island yet. I would have lost a good bit of the cool stuff if I hadn't jumped ahead to write it while I had it.

I have no doubt that if I had tried to write it in order, this last effort would have just been the nth time I tried to write that novel I always wanted to write. Doing it this way yielded a complete novel, and about 70% of the next one in the series. In the second one, I started by writing 12 chapters in the middle, the first chapter, then several chapters in between, a later chapter, and then some more at the beginning. I've almost got it all connected up, and it's working out fine for me.

In the end though, it's what works for you. Try it and see.

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I don't know a lot of writers who write out of order. But Kristine Kathryn Rusch does, and her writing is awesome wins lots of awards in multiple genres.

You will likely need some skill at gluing the pieces together, whether by writing short transitions or by writing scenes and chapters to bridge the parts you wrote earlier.

And you may have to be comfortable tossing out stuff that doesn't fit. (Which is easier if you treat it all as practice.)

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From my personal experience:

Stop thinking about how to write--just write. If that means you write things out of order, then so be it. Write the parts that are in your head now, now. That way, you're writing instead of worrying.

More importantly, those are the parts you know about, and they'll teach you about the parts you don't know about. Even if you don't end up including everything you write, it will probably still be useful to you in figuring out what's going on. For instance, I wrote a fight between two people because that was what was in my head. I'm not going to use that scene, but writing it showed me how cruel one of the characters can be, and I'm going to use that information. Everything you write is either worldbuilding, or character development, or both--or neither, in which case it's an alarm that you don't have enough [world|character] in your mind. If so, then you need to step back and work on that, not the first chapter.

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While feeling rather bad for @Ctouw , who admitted to struggle with managing out-of-order writing, I have to side with both @LaurenIpsum and @what .

Yes, you have to try it for yourself, and yes it is practically possible (I have done it, and it worked for me).

I, being a poster pantser, whose whole outline is literally one sentence, usually write in a strict chronological order--thus trying to ensure a natural progress in the story and character development--but once in a while I become suddenly overwhelmed with such clear and concise (subjectively, of course) vision of an isolated scene, I just have to pen it down in order not to forget it. I do so, and then that scene drifts from chapter to chapter, being pushed farther and farther forward by the "storyline" text, until if finds its place in the narrative and snaps snugly into it.

Sometimes I have to re-write parts of those "orphan" scenes--sometimes a little, to coordinate with the events which happened since they were written, sometimes quite a bit--but they find their places in the story and stay.

So, if I were to give advise: do it (or at least try). Every word you nail to the page makes you better at your craft. Write in any order you feel like, just be aware of the fact that you might have to re-write a lot later.

Which will also make you better at your craft :-)

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For my personnal experience, I do not recommend it at all.

Four years ago there was this story I had in mind and really, really liked and wanted to finish. Although I knew almost exactly what was going to happen from beggining to end, I struggled writing the first chapter - I don't know why, but it always turned out incredibly bad. So I got tired of always writing the same thing over and over again and get something bad in the end, because really, I loved the story and this was disapointing as hell. So I started to write random parts of the story when I felt like it. And yes, doing so I was enjoying writing and got good results; I started to have very satisfying pieces of my story.

But the thing is, whenever I tried to come back to the first chapter and write a decent version of it, I still struggled. And it still was bad. And I figured out that I could never write this chapter correctly. So I changed my plans, made something different happen and boom - most of what I have already written became irrelevant. Plus, I had to prepare in this first chapter what happened in the later chapters I had already written and had not expected to. And the more did I write - whatever part it was - the more everything became a mess and the less I could link all the parts together.

Result : I now have given up on this story and I feel bad, because I still love it but know I could hardly make anything with it now.

And I'm never writing in random order again.

For the funny metaphor : if you start by having a pregnant woman who gives birth to a child that slowly grows, in the end you get an adult human being. But if you take all the parts separately from adults and assemble them together, you get Frankenstein's monster.

This is writing : nothing happens like you expected it too. Details add themselves as the story goes. Characters do things you had not thought of. Things happen and you have to deal with it.

However though, I suggest that if you want to try it, well who am I to tell you how to write ? Do it and see for yourself - I am just reporting you my personnal experience which was negative, but everyone is different and maybe this is how you would write best.

Just be sure you won't waste your story by doing so.

I am a young amateur writer and english is not my mother language. I'm by no means a professional and don't have that much writing experience - still do I have some I can share. Do what you want with my advices ;)

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