Sometimes I will actually sit down and begin writing 'once upon a time' straight through to 'they lived happily ever after'. I did that with 'Wild At Heart', 'Class Reunion', and 'Off The Clock'. But sometimes a scene comes to me and demands to be written out of order.
When that happens, sometimes it is hard to piece together the separate strands of the story, and so they lay jumbled for a while. And then inspiration strikes, and the transition scenes are written.
But sometimes the scenes refuse to join, or new scenes enter the brain. When that happens, I try to reuse them in other stories. For example, I wrote a skinny-dipping scene and never used it. It is still gathering dust, waiting for the day when I can rework it. Actually, what I originally had written became part of the back story for the original character; the only thing I had to do was bring up the incident in conversation.
But again, I'm with everyone else when I say that what works for one writer won't always work for another. And as for those one chapter wips I have lying around....I'm going to take Brynn's advice and made a road map of what I foresee happening with the characters. It might help get me out of this 'black hole' of non-ideas.
Now, as for next week's topic of 'My Story Written by Shakespear'...'Romeo and Juliet' sort of works for All She Ever Wanted, and I can't think of what play would characterize Wild At Heart...Check back next week, after I read the others' posts! Maybe I'll get inspired?
