Sometime back, I was writing a novel where virtually everything was working out perfectly. The characters were so clear I could practically interview them. The settings were as real as my own house. The hook was engaging and easy to sum up in a couple of sentences. There was just one problem: the story wouldn’t gel.

No matter how hard I worked at it, the chapters never felt like they added up to a solid story. They were more like just a bunch of crap that was happening. Half the scenes were crystal clear but I kept running into walls, where I couldn’t move my heroes forward. The situation became so frustrating I actually considered scrapping the whole project.

But desperation leads to innovation and – completely on a whim – I resorted to a totally out-of-the-box strategy.

As I said, much of the story was clear. So I wrote a list of every scene/chapter/sequence I knew needed to take place (I’ve already written several posts on outlines) and then I numbered them. There were a total of 45. Some were only a few paragraphs long, just a moment between characters. A couple were two chapters in length.

Every time time I sat down to write I used a random number generator to give me a number between one and forty-five. Then I’d write that scene/chapter/sequence.

Sounds bonkers, I know.

But the thing is, it worked. Every day I’d sit down uncertain of what I’d be writing. Would it be the story’s climax or catalyst? Would I describe a character’s death or their rebirth? And the total randomness gave me a sense of freedom. I learned so much more about the characters and their situations by spending a couple weeks just bouncing around the novel.

Now, I didn’t write the entire story this way. I stopped after about eight scenes/chapters/sequences. However, that was enough to free up my mind and consider the story as a whole rather than just a string of events. And when I was done with those eight scenes/chapters/sequences I was able to take what worked (save the ones that didn’t for other projects) and apply them to the story as a whole.

So often authors – especially authors who have already edited one novel – find the fun and creativity of writing a first draft stifled by story structure, outlines and rules they are told to follow. But introducing just a bit of chaos might be enough to provide the freedom they need to tell their story.