History Main / WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants

* DCComics in general, during the SilverAge of comics, was infamous for using the following writing system: an editor would design a cover with whatever elements he felt would be popular (gorillas, dinosaurs, aliens etc.) or shocking events ([[SuperDickery death scenes of major characters, betrayals etc, pranks]] etc.) then he would give the cover to a writer and tell him to ''just come up with a story that made sense out of it.'' The results were often [[TropesAreNotBad not very logical, but still enjoyable in their own way]].

* Compare [[MarvelComics "The Marvel Method"]] from the same era: One writer would plot a story, an artist would draw the comic, then another writer would come up with the dialogue, often having to come up with explanations by himself. Fortunately Marvel's staff was usually more serious about their work than DC's and the results were usually better. Marvel used this system as late as the 80's.

%%Do not re-add Lost. Word of God has disproven this. Even if the exact details weren't planned out, the team worked out an end date of a sixth season during production of season 3. Nuff said.

->''No plot? No problem!''

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** Although I'm unsure of how true it is, I heard off a friend that the dialogue in the spaceport in the same episode between Ford and Zaphod ("They're like... huge... broken eggshells...") Is so slow, ponderous and wandering because Douglas Adams was slipping them bits of paper with the next line on it as they were recording.

** Although I'm unsure of how true it is, I heard off a friend that the dialogue in the spaceport in the same episode between Ford and Zaphod("They're like... huge... broken eggshells...") Is so slow, ponderous and wandering because Douglas Adams was slipping them bits of paper with the next line on it as they were recording.

* ''MSPaintAdventures'', especially in the earlier adventures. The latest adventures, ''{{Homestuck}}'', is the only one to have any sort of planning before being written, having started with the four central haracters, their [[WeaponOfChoice weapons of choice]], some [[InventoryManagementPuzzle general]] [[ItemCrafting game]] [[RealityWarper mechanics]], and a handful of plot points, including an ending, worked out beforehand. Everything else was more or lessimprovised.

* SouthPark's script is written the week before it airs.

* This is how DouglasAdams wrote the original radio scripts for ''[[Radio/{{ptitlegvx5tm34k7kq}} The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''. Apparently, he'd often still be rewriting the ends of episodes as the cast were recording the beginning. According to a making-of feature, the actor who was supposed to play the Ruler of the Universe (who appears in the final minutes of the last episode of season two) actually ''went home'' because it took Adams so long to finish the script. The role was cast by handing the pages to the one actor still in the studio who didn't have another part in that scene.

* The vast majority of [[SoapOpera soaps]], work on this principle. It's essentially the nature of doing a work "live." RealLifeWritesThePlot sometimes contributes to this trope, especially for things like pregnancies.

* An excellent summation of this trope: "It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole journey that way. " --E.L. Doctorow, on writing (also quoted by Anne La Mott).

* Cory Doctorow wrote ''Little Brother'' in eight days.

* The second and third ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' movies were both being written as they were filmed.

* LRonHubbard claims he wrote by meditating into a trance-like state and typing constantly for hours at a time.

%%Do not readd Lost. Word of God has disproven this. Even if the exact details weren't planned out, the team worked out an end date of a sixth season during production of season 3. Nuff said.

* In [[Film/IronMan Iron Man]], the actors came up with so many good things on-set that halfway through they just threw away the script (having previously rewritten it every night) and instead wrote outlines of each scene instead. Jeff Bridges said that it felt weird doing it this way, then realised that just he had to treat it "like a 200 million dollar student film".

* This is essentially how {{NaNoWriMo}} works. Participants are given 30 days to see if they can write at least 50,000 words. At a rate of 1,667 words per day, writing the first thing that pops into one's head is pretty much the only way a participant can "win".
** [[AllThereInTheManual If you choose to do it that way.]] The rules allow writers to have character sketches, plot summaries, and even extensive, detailed outlines - as long as none of the actual prose is written before 12:00 AM on November 1.

* HoraceKelton once replied to a friend that he didn't know "what [his] next book would be about. [[IJustWriteTheThing The characters [hadn't] told [him]]]." But he still planned some once he got the basic idea.

** [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum That explains a lot...]]

* DouglasAdams wrote ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy~=]'' this way largely - throw out tons of ideas, then return later when it seems like one of them is funny or could be made relevant (like the potted plant saying "Oh no, not again"). As you can imagine, Adams was terrible at deadlines and finished the first book at that page because his publisher was furious.

* This is how DouglasAdams wrote the original radio scripts for ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy~=]''. Apparently, he'd often still be rewriting the ends of episodes as the cast were recording the beginning. According to a making-of feature, the actor who was supposed to play the Ruler of the Universe (who appears in the final minutes of the last episode of season two) actually ''went home'' because it took Adams so long to finish the script. The role was cast by handing the pages to the one actor still in the studio who didn't have another part in that scene.

** The presence of some ''very'' good actors didn't hurt at all. There's a reason this is seen as Robert Downey Jr's CrowningMomentOfAwesome.

* The Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe [[ExtrudedBookProduct churned out novels for Badger Books]] on the basis of a book cover, a title and a very short deadline. Badger's polices mean it's impossible to tell exactly how many he wrote, but the estimate works out at one 158 page book every twelve days. To manage this, he dictated into a reel to reel tape recorder, then shipped the tapes off to a pool of typists for transcription. To hit the word target, he would [[{{Padding}} pad out]] the books with philosophical discussions, mundane detail and [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment redundant descriptions]] (robots: "Metal things. Metal things that could think. Thinking metal things"), but then could be told that he had only three pages left to wrap up the story, so he had to [[AssPull pull out]] a DeusExMachina. Despite, or perhaps because of all this, Fanthorpe's work has picked up a SoBadItsGood following.

* Ray Bradbury wrote ''Fahrenheit 451'' at a pay typewriter in 9 days.
** To be fair, it was based on his previous short story ''The Fireman''.