Pop By Pop

I'm currently working on a historical novel set in the late 19th century. It's a story that first came to me years ago, but it was just a kernel of an idea then. A kernel that stuck with me. Then, this past November, a fellow writer and I were talking about her novel-in-progress--a Gothic piece set in the Victorian era--and that's when it hit me: my idea, my "kernel", needed to be set in the 19th century.

And from there, my kernel became an entire bag of popcorn--the initial idea "popped", setting of a domino effect. Before I knew it, I had a story. A story that's being written pop-by-pop.

As an image/scene comes to me, I write it down. Sometimes, I write the entire scene. Other times, I just write a summary and then write the scene later. Sometimes, I don't even know what's going to happen in the scene--I just write and see what emerges. It's almost as if my narrator is standing on my shoulder, telling me what to write. At times I feel like this isn't even my story, that I'm just a conduit for my narrator.

I've never written in this way before--pop by pop, waiting to see what emerges. In all my past writing endeavors, I painstakingly plotted my story. I would start with the initial idea, then dive into my characters' lives. From there, I would come up with the entire story, starting at the very beginning and plotting along chronologically. This never worked out--I always gave up mid-story, so bored with my original idea that I just couldn't stand to be with it anymore.

This new method of writing is one I have heard about before, from other writers. I was just always too afraid to try it myself. I'm a librarian, after all--I like order (to an extent) and so that's how I tried to write. But this pop-by-pop way of doing it seems to be working better--I've written more and I'm not bored with the idea.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever stumbled into a way of doing something that ended up working out great? A way you never tried before?