Swoop or Bash?

[SkyBubble]

Kurt Vonnegut said there were two types of writers, swoopers and bashers. Swoopers write in a flow, trying to get the whole idea onto the page (or screen these days); bashers write a paragraph, maybe two, and then nibble at it until it feels right.

I think we're all both to some extent, but I know that I'm a swooper. I need to get it out while it's in my head. I'll edit it later.

Which mode do you use primarily?

 

[OddLove]

That seems like a good spectrum range. If swoop was the left, and bash on the right, I'm like ten percent left of the center.

Starting stories in swoop mode where many things get decided, the tweeking and polishing little bits at a time till it's done.

I've heard many big writers describe being full swoopers(as in claiming they just go start to finish then call it done). But I imagine they have editors cause one takes seem almost unimaginable.

 

[anthrodisiac]

There are two types of writers: those that believe in binary categorizations, and those that don't.

 

[EmilyMiller]

There are two types of writers: those that believe in binary categorizations, and those that don't.

There are ten types of people, those who get binary and those who don’t.

 

[anthrodisiac]

More seriously: I'm a pantser, so I'm definitely a swooper 90% of the time. I do get into headspaces where I'm less sure of myself and the material, then I'm absolutely a basher because I fret too much.

 

[anthrodisiac]

There are ten types of people, those who get binary and those who don’t.

You mean 10 types of people, I'm assuming. Writing it out as "ten" decoheres the joke. Which could be a type of humor in and of itself.

We'll get back to you on that.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

There are ten types of people, those who get binary and those who don’t.

I think you once mentioned being an engineer?

 

[dirk2024]

I'm a basher.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

Not only do I like to get it all down in one go, I also dislike writing anything other than start-to-finish. I might go back and add a section or two later, but I nearly always begin by writing the opening and finish by writing the ending.

 

[EmilyMiller]

You mean 10 types of people, I'm assuming. Writing it out as "ten" decoheres the joke. Which could be a type of humor in and of itself.

We'll get back to you on that.

Nah, it works better with the number spelled out

 

[EmilyMiller]

I think you once mentioned being an engineer?

Nope - I knew a lot of engineers at college. Once you know one, you know them all . I was a biologist before COVID shuttered my laboratory.

 

[SkyBubble]

I've heard many big writers describe being full swoopers(as in claiming they just go start to finish then call it done). But I imagine they have editors cause one takes seem almost unimaginable.

I generally swoop, then go back and bash my way through an edit before sending it to an editor to catch anythign I missed.

 

[SkyBubble]

Nope - I knew a lot of engineers at college. Once you know one, you know them all . I was a biologist before COVID shuttered my laboratory.

I dated a girl in college who wound up being a research chemist. Now she's a painter.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Nah, it works better with the number spelled out

Hang on, I have to put out the small fire that caused in my Literality Department, because spelling it out completely mistranslates the joke into something that's an extra layer of abstraction on the humor. Normal operations should resume shortly.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hang on, I have to put out the small fire that caused in my Literality Department, because spelling it out completely mistranslates the joke into something that's an extra layer of abstraction on the humor. Normal operations should resume shortly.

I like abstraction. I like non-obvious. You have spoken to me before, right?

I should be asleep

 

[OddLove]

I generally swoop, then go back and bash my way through an edit before sending it to an editor to catch anythign I missed.

I'm curious. After you swoop through and get the big picture painted, then you go back through to edit... have you noticed if your word count increases or decreases?

 

[TheLobster]

I don't Bash, I use Zsh as my shell.

*clears throat*

Alright, nerdy jokes aside... I wouldn't necessarily call it bashing, but as a proud, card-carrying member of the Pants Club I often start my writing sessions by reading the previous few paragraphs, or a previous scene, and as I do I practically always end up tweaking them in some way. Sometimes for quite a long time, until I tell myself to stop, drop a [bracketed comment] to deal with it later, and get to actually writing.

Once I am actually new material, that's usually pretty swoopy; I'd say about 80%. If I can't find good wording for some particular passage, I might get stuck on it again, but hopefully I'm getting better at detecting this and leaving the offending paragraph for later revision (again, with a [bracketed comment]).

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

There are two types of writers: those that believe in binary categorizations, and those that don't.

There ate two types of writers, intuitive...

 

[anthrodisiac]

I don't Bash, I use Zsh as my shell.

*clears throat*

Alright, nerdy jokes aside... I wouldn't necessarily call it bashing, but as a proud, card-carrying member of the Pants Club I often start my writing sessions by reading the previous few paragraphs, or a previous scene, and as I do I practically always end up tweaking them in some way. Sometimes for quite a long time, until I tell myself to stop, drop a [bracketed comment] to deal with it later, and get to actually writing.

Once I am actually new material, that's usually pretty swoopy; I'd say about 80%. If I can't find good wording for some particular passage, I might get stuck on it again, but hopefully I'm getting better at detecting this and leaving the offending paragraph for later revision (again, with a [bracketed comment]).

I literally put TODO: next to things I decided I can figure out later. It pains me when I see more than two or three

 

[TheLobster]

I literally put TODO: next to things I decided I can figure out later. It pains me when I see more than two or three

Yeah, my drafts these days are littered with such notes. A lot of them are basically mini-outlines of particular scenes, especially once I'm about halfway through a story and the initial premise has crystalized into a full plot or at least a good general chunk thereof.

Lately I've been adding a bigger TODO section on top for what to look out for during revision. The draft I'm currently finishing, for example, involves a post-hoc plot twist that will necessitate more foreshadowing and updating some of the characters, so I made sure I left notes about that.

 

[BeechLeaf]

My notes are in square brackets, and my analysis program ignores those. I have just this minute stripped those out and pasted the remainder here as a draft yay. Sometimes an entire scene is just a synopsis, broken up into subscenes as bracketed notes, under which I will write; this is intended to stop me swinging back and forth between ideas that should be covered in a single place. But a complex mix of swooping and bashing.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Lately I've been adding a bigger TODO section on top for what to look out for during revision. The draft I'm currently finishing, for example, involves a post-hoc plot twist that will necessitate more foreshadowing and updating some of the characters, so I made sure I left notes about that.

Ah, the joys of pantsing. "Oh, plot twist I didn't see coming!... and now I have to go foreshadow it... *sigh*"

 

[TheLobster]

Ah, the joys of pantsing. "Oh, plot twist I didn't see coming!... and now I have to go foreshadow it... *sigh*"

The nicer flip side is pantsing in a lot of potential plot elements early on, so as to load your chessboard with pieces you can then move freely to advance the story, and then receiving how amazing it is you've harkened back to something introduced 20k words ago (while completely ignoring ten other things you also introduced but didn't end up using later).

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Swooper. My experience as a basher is that SpongeBob meme where the page is just an elegant "The."

 

[crookedletter]

99% of the time I'm a swooper. I do my best writing when I manage to get into a flow and just see what comes out. I come back to bash it later.

Every once in a while I'll have a very specific tone or effect I'm trying to get at, and I'm swooping along and it's just not quite right. So then I'll linger a bit and try to bash something out before I move on. But that's usually an impulse I try to resist, because it's generally not how my process works best.