Dealing with ideas

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Daniel, Jul 7, 2006.

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  1. Sal Boxford

    Sal Boxford Senior Member

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    The Big Thing that I'm always/never working on started with characters and the story came out of chucking them at each other and seeing what happened. My first short story started with characters and was chuffing awful. Everything else has started with a theme or plot. I think it maybe depends what you're trying to achieve with the story.
     
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  2. xanadu

    xanadu Contributor Contributor

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    I do characters and story at the same time, where part of what I come up with regarding character is related to the story that character will be a part of. I think I've used this example before in a similar topic, but as an example, I might think of a character--a teenage girl--but it won't be siloed like that. I'll also have some backstory--her mother died while giving birth to her. But it doesn't even stop at that, either--I'll also have part of her personality and a sense of the major story conflict along with it: she feels so guilty about living that it drives her to self-harm, and her relationship with her father is incredibly strained. The main conflict is that strained relationship and how it will be mended. There is no story without the character, but there is also no character without the story.
     
  3. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    A good way to lay it out. For me, it's more like 2-1-3. And it would be location/time for me, since I tend to like historical fiction. Then, a handful of characters (knowing the roster will grow quickly), then the thing that's happening or about to happen. It's also possible, if the thing that's happening is connected with something that really DID happen in my selected location/time, that the thing and the characters will be known to me at the same time. I usually write a couple of sketchy chapters at that point, then pause to ponder where the whole thing will take me.
     
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  4. TheLizardfolk

    TheLizardfolk New Member

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    This is basically me. I always start with the theme first. "Why am I telling this story?" And "What do I want my audience to learn from my story?" I always start with those questions first when I decide to commit to an idea. From there I take a pretty big picture visual of it and imagine scenarios that I think would be interesting to personally witness and experience (through a fictional perspective of course). Plot normally just comes out naturally from that, then I think of the characters and flesh them out. I don't really write sequentially or on a method after that. Once I feel like I understand my theme super well, I just ebb and flow between developing character and developing plot. I find that I can't only just think out the plot first without the characters and vise versa so I do that together.
     
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  5. hawls

    hawls Active Member

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    It depends on the story. I can't say definitively that I start with the world or the characters or the happenings.

    I start because an idea strikes. Everything that comes after that is informed by the thing which inspired it. One idea came to me because I was horrified over the proposed mass culling of sharks in my country. Then I thought, this book has to be for children because adults are clearly a lost cause. This led to my characters being children who live by the sea. The story is a result of my whimsy and sleep deprivation.
     
  6. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    I just make everything up out of thin air. Sometimes it has a message of some sort, but typically
    it is just a simple story that can stray off the beaten path of either side of Horror or Comedy.
    Longest pieces so far are of a Sci-fi type, but even then it gets complex coming up with names
    and situations of varying degree of intensity. Try making up alien names on the fly, or langauges.
    Not a simple task.

    (Maybe one day I will come up with a funny conclusion to the misadventures of Spork and Forkina.):superlaugh:
     
  7. Siena

    Siena Senior Member

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    For me, it's theme. What I want the story to say.

    I like to have it first, which doesn't mean I always do have it first. Often, it emerges, which means a lot of rewriting later.
     
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  8. Siena

    Siena Senior Member

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    There is a legitimate method where you "know the story in your head" before starting writing it; involves constant thinking and rethinking over and over.

    The problem I find is that stories change during the act of writing, so it doesn't suit me personally.

    Ultimately, it's whatever gets the job done. Think when you have to, write to force ideas when you have to etc etc etc.
     
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  9. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

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    My stories usually start as essays or notes I take as I read books, watch movies, and study art or science subjects. I daydream constantly, to the point of it being debilitating, always with the hope of forming a narrative to convey a message based on all the different parts of life, art, science, earth, space, time, sex, death, love, hunger, and people I experience.

    If an idea sticks, if it feels like it would be interesting as a narrative, I write some short scenes based around the subject. I play with different POVs and characters, I test the clarity of the ideas in story form, and try to make it interesting. I test the limits of the themes. If I'm writing about addicts, I make them kill for a hit. Growing a flower? It'll be in the desert.

    For my current book I absorb military history research, accounts, technical manuals, mixed with my own experiences, to feed the formation of the story. I am very careful about reading pure fiction when I write. Those stories are already distilled for consumption. My story is scifi, but I could name every Hungarian tank that ever existed. Roman legion billets and ranks? Don't mock me.

    I form my stories from real life and my own feeble attempts to understand it.
     
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  10. wrigby paige

    wrigby paige New Member

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    I sort of start with a hybrid. I write a scene, a setting and test-drive the character in it.
     
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  11. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    I can so relate! One of the reasons I am temporarily 'stuck' is because I know too little and want to give myself a chance to read/research before I jump in the mixer. Said the frog, already treading water desperately.

    It's always been a specific moment in my head which got the whole story started. It tends to be a momentous moment, though not necessarily the great turning point. The characters in that moment are my main MCs. And then I try to fill in the blanks before that moment, and after that moment
     
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  12. NoGoodNobu

    NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

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    I think the biggest thing is that I am not a professional writer nor are any my works intended for publication or profit.

    I write for very specific audiences—my best friend most often, and various & varying groups of friends.

    This greatly colours & informs my creative process, in that I am a lot more lax when it comes to my writing.

    The entire goal of any of my works is sheer entertainment. The morals or themes are irrelevant at conception.

    Like you I start with characters. Then I play out various events with them. And the story builds action by action, dialogue by dialogue, scene by scene (often in random order or sequence, though I do have a vague notion of their placement on an imaginary timeline). I always have a perfect grasp of my characters, and their actions & speeches always follow their internal logic, but the consequent direction of the plot & subsequent events often can take me surprise. And in general I don't know what my work is essentially about until it is complete.

    However, this has caused some amusing issues—for instance, my current project amounts to a tale of two best friends each with a selfish need of the other to perpetuate their delusions & maintain their unhealthy fantasies, who the whole tale are desperately trying to cling to one another and reunite but in fact ultimately need to part to be healed. This is simultaneously disconcerting & hilarious as this story is a birthday present for my best friend & platonic love of my life.
     
  13. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Shotgun style. Sometimes I'm working on a character, sometimes I'm working on a setting element, sometimes I'm working on a different character, sometimes I'm working on a plot element, sometimes I'm working on a different setting element, sometimes I'm working on a scene...
     
  14. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    I try not to separate story from character so I make them up at the same time and I do all this while writing. No preplanning with my fiction. I don't want to have a great character that might work better in another story, which I guess would be my fear. Or a great story that would work better with another character. That also would be a pretty big problem. When created simultaneously they seem to fit. And I see character and plot as a cohesive unit. Story is both character and plot. And it's really important that these things work together. If I was trying to view or write them separately, I think it would screw me up.
     
  15. Likas

    Likas New Member

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    I always start with a little idea, just a sentence that I jot down in a notebook. I think about these little ideas a lot over time and I realize different things I could do with them, for instance, the kind of characters I want, how I'm going to organize the plot, or just little details I can add. Eventually, when I want to write something, I will sit down and develop one of these ideas in detail, fleshing out the plot and subplots, getting to know the characters, and making sure I have a clear idea of how I want to write the story.
     
  16. Lyrical

    Lyrical Frumious Bandersnatch

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    I can honestly say it has been different for almost every story. For one, I had a very, very clear idea of a setting. It was rich and fully defined in my mind when it came to me, but strangely empty. No characters, no plot. Just a place. So I sat on it for a long time. I'd try to think of potential problems that could arise in this place and plots that might emerge from that, but all of them felt wrong. Since I was working on other projects at the time, I didn't push it. I just let it sit. Almost a year later, a plot came to me in a flash of inspiration and perfectly fit into this setting I'd already had. I got to work immediately and it built itself out easily from there.

    For my current WIP, however, I was ruminating on some ideas about the good-versus-evil inside every person and from that sprang a character. Through her and my efforts to learn about her, I saw the world she came from and a rough sketch of a plot. It was hazy at first, but eventually it came together. If it were a web of ideas, she'd be at the center. Every decision I made for the story hinged on what I knew about her. The story came together with characters first, with plot piggybacked on them. Setting was an afterthought. I guess we'll see if that way worked when I get to the beta-reading phase.

    I've also had plots come to mind first that then need characters and settings to go with them. I've also found stories in just a line of poetry or errant thought. The events are hard to define, as it all seems to happen at once.
    I guess the short of it is: I don't think the creative process has been the same twice for me. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing -- if it means I don't know myself as a writer if I don't have a formula for building my stories. But there it is. I just try to be as close as possible to a paper or keyboard when an idea, character, or location strikes.
     
  17. Neural

    Neural Member

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    I absolutely love character creation. I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy it thoroughly. This goes beyond writing for me, as I tend to be what is known as an "altaholic" in MMORPGs. In an older one that was shut down a few years back (City of Heroes), I had 22 characters, each with their own history/backstory. The majority of my stories are based on characters I have created in games, or inspired by characters I've made. Once I have a character defined, for myself, I can live and experience the story through her/his eyes, and the stories just write themselves at times (assuming I have a decent set of events to portray).
     
  18. EnginEsq

    EnginEsq Member

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    For the related works my wife and I are creating, I think it started with a completely impossible thing we'd love to see happen (it's SF after all) and a reason why someone would try to make it happen anyway. The story comes from the consequences of that effort, both before and after it succeeds. The settings came from a desire to illustrate (organically, without preaching) certain ideas, like how family and community can (but rarely do) work, the value of having a frontier, the perils of simplistic sociopolitical ideologies, and the dangers of life becoming to comfortable.
     
  19. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    mostly i have the basic idea first - generally from a 'what if' question , or from something ive read that i'd like to do differently/better , then from that springs both setting and characters ... the only exception to that was the Aidan Darcy short story, where i originally invented aidan for the celtic gods rpg then decided to write him a back story.
     
  20. I.A. By the Barn

    I.A. By the Barn A very lost time traveller Contributor

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    My novel: Plot, then characters, then a change in the plot then a location.
    My bunch of short stories: location, characters then plot (which is why it is so bad)

    His surname is Darcy??? I didn't know that. That'll annoy me. I have a character with the same goddamn name! Ah shiii-
    "This is the brain speaking. Will Ayden Darcy please revoke her name? You will be supplied with a new one with immediate effect."
    Sorted that out. Her name is now Martha Jacobs.
     
  21. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Darcy is from the Celtic for dark - Aidan means fire - this is why at times in the RPG referring to himself in the third person he says things like "I have only left you alive to tell others that the Dark Fire is to be feared"

    Its thus more of a byname than a first and surname In the short story he starts off as an enslaved serving boy called Acran , who his captors - the warband of "Aengus the toad" derisorily call Acran pissbrekes , referring to him pissing himself in fear when he was first captured... he then makes a bargain with the goddess Agronna - goddess of battle and carnage- which gives him astounding skill with a sword or dagger. (in the RPG I said that the bargain was that he'd remain a virgin, but in the short story I wrote him having steamy sex with Agronna and swearing fidelity to her) - he then uses that skill to slaughter the warband , leaving only the pleasure women and serving girls alive , and renames himself "baptized in their reeking blood" before heading off to life as a mercenary
     
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  22. Thufeil

    Thufeil Member

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    Well now i know that to write the idea into a form of a story, we just have to 'let it flow'. We can have a concept at the beginning, i mean before starting to write a story, but we can't have the complete form of the story before we even write it down.
     
  23. AASmith

    AASmith Senior Member

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    Plot then characters to work around it. Generally though the plot and characters are conceived at the same time, or at least within seconds of each other.
     
  24. Lemie

    Lemie Contributor Contributor

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    Characters are easier, to me, but I've had a lot of plotless characters around before so now I usually ignore random character concepts unless there is something special. Then I might save them in my mind (or on paper) to use them when a plot comes along.

    When it comes to actual writing I both prefer and think it's easier to have a plot to work on. If I don't plan things properly there won't be any real sense to it. It will usually be random days of this super, amazing (;)) character, and that tends to be a bad story.
     
  25. Thufeil

    Thufeil Member

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    Unpredictable ideas that come unconditionally usually lead us to write a good writing. They embody into an experience or even an imagination which 'force' us to turn them into a wonderful string of words. Then it becomes various kind of writing like poems, novels, essays, etc.
    In what situation did you get your idea most? And what idea is that?
     

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