As for sticking to my mental outline. Heh. The way I write, I tend 

to

just tend to let my thoughts wander and let the characters play out a
particular scene as would seem logical to their characterization.
Unfortunately, this tends to send the plot screaming down avenues I 

hadn't

originally intended for it, but which happens because the characters
wouldn't have done it the other way and still be themselves. I 

sometimes get

the feeling the characters demand that a certain scene go a certain way
despite my wishes, so I just tend to ride with it and see where it'll 

go
>from there. 

  Happened to me twice already. One, my most famous example (especially 
since it's from my worst fic ever) is where, after Mousse is left behind 
alone in Japan, Ukyo takes him in out of pity. For some reason I ended 
up putting them together as a couple, knowing full well that it'd never 
work. But, I stuck with it, I had them shatter a couple stories later, 
and made Ukyo much more bitter about relationships and her own judgement 
(I just about spoiled two of my stories right there, folks). The thing 
is, these events (while not the most brilliant ideas in existance) 
helped set up some more events that wouldn't have happened otherwise. 
  The second has Kodachi becoming attracted to... naw, I'll wait until I 
post it to tell y'all. Needless to say, it's worked a lot better than my 
previous deviation. This was one of the events that was affected by the 
first deviation event. 

  Of course, how good they all turn out is the question....

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."--JMS, creator of Babylon 5. 
"If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die."--Kosh, Babylon 5.
"Jump. Jump now!"--Kosh, Babylon 5, making some sense. 

--Razorclaw X

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