What techniques do you use? Write an outline first and flesh it out? Just start writing chapter one and let the story go where it wants? Something else?
It should be obvious that I have no experience whatsoever, but I got to thinking about a story and realized that even if I had the inclination, I have no idea what to do with it. I could sit down and just start writing I guess, but I’m the kind of personality that would rather study the problem until I forget the original idea and then I can look for a new hobby.
Start writing and then keep going. I’m a believer you can put it together later and it’s better to get the ideas flowing. No matter what you do, you’re going to the writing stage sooner or later, and practices improves the writing, so you might as well get busy and fine tune later.
That’s basically how I’ve done the story I have worked on for the last 18 months, although I had it easier in that it was non-fiction. I sat down and started wherever I felt like on any given night, and only started filling in the other pieces when the easiest stuff took care of itself.
I have an outline format where I lay out each of the characters across the top and then list the scenes (as just one or two word long titles) that involve them down in a sort of chronology. This lets me make sure that characters aren’t being forgotten and that there are nice shifts in tone and whatnot to break things up regularly. It also lets me see the whole story in a concise format to look for plot holes or things that could bear to be fleshed out with more chapters.
I can tell fairy tale sort of stories in a stream of consciousness sort of way. I’m not sure if I could do it vocally, but I’ve done it in real time online several times. I don’t think I’d want to try and do it for something professional. Though I got the feeling from the movie Stardust that this is pretty much how that story was fashioned. It was very similar to the style and tone and put-togetherness of a real-time fairy tale creation.
I ran through a lot of the plot in my head, and wrote an outline - and then wrote the last chapter first. This helped solidify the clues I’d have to plant in the other chapters. I spent an excessive amount of time thinking about it before I wrote, though. I added more clues on a second draft, but it held together pretty well.
Start writing it as you would any other paper using proper sentence and paragraph structure.
I’d storyboard the plot on a chalkboard and fill in the gaps in chunks. That way you can relate to your story as a whole and jump back and forth as you write. I’d also keep a list of characters with a synopsis on the side of the board for reference. I’ve seen books list the characters this way to help the readers keep track of what is going on.
After that make sure the opening sentence and page grab the reader’s attention.
He silently wrote in his journal, “it was the best of lines and the worst of mimes”. His hand underlined the letters neatly but for some reason the words would not come out. yadda yadda yadda… plot… resolution… the end. Publisher’s check is in the mail.
Best of luck.
I come up with the “story engine” – a concept that will drive the plot. Then I write chapter one in order to get the most out of it.
From then on, I just throw things at the characters and have them deal with them as they try to achieve what they need to achieve because of the first chapter. I pay attention to what I write and how the characters react.
At the most, I have a general overarching idea that I want to stick to – the destination. But I don’t want a road map to get there.
I never outline. It kills the story. Once I’ve written down what happens, I’m less interested in writing about it. I want to find out what happens to my characters, and only have a general idea of how it will work out. I figure if I’m feeling that way about what’s happening, the reader will, too.
Once you finish the first draft, of course, you add things to strengthen the plot: foreshadowing (which you always do at the end), etc. I also constantly think about what I’m writing to figure out what’s wrong with it. What possible objections could an editor have? Then I fix them.
I’ve had some success with this method. I should also say that this is how I do it. Other successful writers do things differently.
I read that article - thank you pantheon - and thought it was terrific. I’ve had both fiction and non-fiction published, and it is very different. I’m working on my second novel, as well as more non-fiction.
I do a lot of planning and work upfront. In particular, I get to know my characters very well. I have collected hundreds of pictures from magazines of people who are looking at the camera and who seem to have something really interesting about them, and who I don’t recognise. I then flick through this collection and find images which seem to fit the general theme. I then work and work with those images until the final set of characters emerges. Glued into an exercise book, they then accompany me all the time, so I can add notes about them. I talk to them in the car, late at night - whenever I can. When my characters are very real, then I know I am ready to write. It takes me months, if not years (I have a series planned at the moment, so the characters for the one I am writing, and for the next are both hanging around).
From then on, the writing is a team effort - my characters and me.
My published work to date has exclusively been non-fiction, but I have a number of unpublished short stories awaiting a publisher (not much demand for short fiction in Australia, it seems).
I’ve been working on a novel and have adopted the approach of writing the way trans-continental railways are built; I start at the beginning and write until I run out of steam, then I write the ending and work backwards from there; the idea being to meet up in the middle.
I find it helps keep me thinking (so I don’t suffer “Character Boredom”; where I already know what’s going to happen and run out of motivation to keep describing things) and often causes me to take another look at things earlier in the story and say “That’s not going to go anywhere and needs to be tweaked/re-written”.
Obviously not everyone’s cup of tea, but so far it’s working for me. (And, FTR, my non-fiction stuff is written in the conventional manner; it’s only my fiction stuff that I write from both ends of the story at once).
I guess it depends on what you want to write. I couldn’t help you with fiction, but I’ve written many reports and documents in the hundreds of thousands of pages on non-fiction subjects.
Generally, I start any writing endeavor by creating my table of contents first. I come up with my high-level groupings, my main topics. Toss in an overview at the beginning, my references and appendix at the end. Then I dig into each main subject and start slicing and dicing. How many categories are within each topic? What’s the best way to split it up or approach it? Then, for each of those areas I see if there’s any sub-topics under that.
Once I have my main levels and sub-topics and sub-sub-topics identified, I just pick one and start doing my research. Then, just keep going and fill in each section until you’re done. You may find that as you learn more, you re-organize your structure a bit but once you have a structure (any structure) it’s much easier to start.
I’m afraid that, if I ever actually pull the trigger on this, I’m going to approach it like writing a program. Flow charts and detailed planning of each character and etc. until it’s completely soulless and as exciting as a bit of software
This is my process in a nutshell. The key, of course is paying attention – what I call “listening to the story.” It’s not slapping down whatever words come to mind. It’s making sure that the words I write get me closer to the story I want to tell.
It has worked for me; the last novel I wrote required a net change of 1000 words on editing (out of 94,000). The current one in edit is requiring a bit more, but that’s because one secondary character wasn’t drawn well enough to “flip” her when I needed her to flip. Even so, it should be a net change of less than 5,000 out of 100,000.
There are scads of programs out there that break writing down into timelines and scenes (or notes if you will). Sounds rather a bit like the flowchart type thing.
I’ve tried a couple of those (Liquid Story Binder and yWriter) on the current story that I’ve been pecking out for a couple years. It was actually helpful for me to see where I was at in the telling process so that I could get on with just letting my brain bleed onto the page.
And no, I don’t outline. In fact, I’m sort of keeping the ending of the story a secret from myself to keep it interesting.
We are now at a level of discussion which means you have to consider the genre. It is NEVER dull if you know your characters well, because they will derail your plans anyway. Those who have written novels will know what I mean - others will think I am crazy.
I am writing crime, so I need some idea of the overall picture or there will be inconsistencies, which are the death (excuse the pun) of a crime novel. But I don’t go to the degree of flowcharting. I have the overall picture - I have the critical details set in concrete (wet concrete, but concrete none the less) and the rest is flexible. That means all the characters and their reactions to the situations, and to other characters, can go in all sorts of unpredictable directions. A good novel does not have a straight line plot development. Those unexpected incidents happen as we (the characters and me) write the story, and they argue with me as to what their character will do. Get your characters really really real, and you will never find it soulless.
After every conversation (and sometimes every sentence), you have to ask yourself, “What does what the character say tell us about the character? Is it consistent with what the character has done already? How will the reader react to what is said?” And I don’t mean things like biography. I mean that if the character acts cranky, then if he suddenly turns kindly, then either there is a reason for it or you’re not doing things right.
“The most important thing in the writing process is writing.” Said to me when I was ten years old, during the only creative writing class I’ve ever taken. If you want to write something, you’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t first write something. My general process is: idea -> free writing until I have a feel for what’s in my head -> formal first chapter/section -> loose psuedo-outlining -> more writing. Once there’s something like a story on paper, then it’s time to really make a tight outline and fill in possible plot holes and such.
I once caused a roommate serious concern, because when she walked in I appeared to be shouting at Word that he is a nice guy and is supposed to be helping you stop pushing people away and why are you doing this? She didn’t seem particularly relieved when I tried explaining that there was supposed to be chemistry between two characters but it wasn’t happening.
I think this may be the true-est statement I have ever read. My characters become real, living people to me, and God forbid I try to force then to do something they don’t think they should do. It keep them from NOT doing something they WANT to, which is the problem I am having right now. I have recently started a story in which the 2 main characters were meant to become a couple… but not just yet. And I have NEVER created a couple that have more heat between them. They just freakin’ met, and and the sexual tension between them is wonderful! Can’t have 'em hop right in bed tho, because she just hired him and I just don’t think that’d work…
Anyway… I start with my characters and a mental outline, sort of figure the beginning, middle and end. Then I just start writing. The charcters fill in the details.
Rule of thumb: whenever I think about a character, “Oh, he/she would never do that,” I immediately figure out a way to make sure they do that exact thing.
Instant conflict.
In my case, the characters are revealed to me through their dialog and, to a lesser extent, by their actions. Often, they end up doing things I never expected at first.
