ABSTRACT
This way of composing is sometimes called stream of consciousness writing,
though as you see I add the proviso that the conscious mind is largely passing
on what the subconscious has already thought about. It is one strategy for
finding out how a story can develop. What’s certainly true is that most writers
know more than they realise about the context of the story. The children’s author
Douglas Hill would notice a scene or character or even a line of text popping
into his mind and just start writing whatever came into his thoughts ‘to find out
more about it’. Years of experience in this way of working often meant that
what came out was usually quite polished prose. He told me not long before his
death that his latest story had been dictated to him by one of the characters.
