Econtalk - Lorne Buchman on Creativity
This episode discussed the eternal struggle on how to be creative. One of the main points is that many successful creators say that they “follow the characters with they pen” and “just writing” instead of waiting for inspiration. Exploring by creating something and stumbling upon the ideas. That discovery of novel ideas is very hard or impossible to control. Stephen King comes to mind who talks a lot about writing his books this way.
On the “just the follow the characters” method my biggest worry is the endings, which they did get into albeit very briefly. Many authors that write this way write excellent characters with compelling beginnings only to have the story fall flat in the end. Case in point King or Lost (JJ. Abrams) mentioned in the podcast. For Abrams this is especially flagrantly evident in his Mystery Box TED Talk. Nice idea, just expect to be disappointed in the end.