I feel your joy, writerdude. Sometimes you just want to shout, "[I've] got it! By George, [I've] got it!" Not sure about what you've got but it sounds like it works in your work.
How chaotic are your story notes? Do you keep everything in one place with dates and times, or do you scatter all of your notes around and store them weirdly in folders? How do you keep track of all of your ideas?
For my current project, which has involved extensive research, I have two 5-subject notebooks. Some sections are for research notes, others for story notes. For each chapter, I have a real-life timeline, notes on the major characters and brief character arcs. As my project unfolds and I go back to recheck things and do additional research, I find I can't keep things as I had originally organized them, so cross-referencing is becoming a bear (in fact, that's how I spent a good part of this past Sunday).
My notes/ideas are just one long long list on word on my planning document. Yeah, everything is just lists, really. I wouldn't say their organised since there's so many ideas I probably won't use but I have to scroll through them all xD I wouldn't see the point of doing dates and times though lol
I keep a log of everything I do on a project, starting from the day I begin researching. It was a habit I got into while working on film projects and it's transferred over to my writing.
I keep mine in a Word document, as I hate writing things out by hand, and I usually organize the ideas and research in the order of how it'll fit into the story. I tried using a notebook once and write out all my ideas by hand, but it got so chaotic because I couldn't easily erase an entire idea and put it in chronological order as I came up with more ideas, so it's a mess of arrows and side notes that's hard for even myself to follow.
i add them to a document of 'ideas for xxxxx' that i keep in each project's file... i print it out when working on the project, for easy reference... when some element of the list is used, i check it off or line-through it...
I used to write notes on whatever scrap of paper I could find. I'd meticulously date the notes and identify which project they applied to (I usually work on several at once), but they were all over the house and I could never find the ones I wanted. Three years ago I started carrying a little Moleskine notebook in my shirt pocket everywhere I went, and all my notes went into that. Much more organized! Also, earlier this year I started using Scrivener, and that makes note-taking for each project much easier. So now I'm on the Moleskine-Scrivener Notes Plan. We'll see how it works long term.
I usually write them on loose paper, and then often lose them, since I can't seem to keep track of all of them in one place. Shame really...But if something sticks with me, I usually start doing something with it. Then, the notes seem to fade away.
Ideas that arrive in the middle of the night go on a 3x5 card next to the bed. During the day, sheets of paper, on clipboards, around the pottery studio.(2 floors, 3000 sq. ft.) When I am awash in a sea of paper they get edited, and go on virtual paper. When my virtual desktop is so littered I can no longer get on line, they get put into folders. When the folders threaten to duplicate the above scenario, they go in other folders. Sometimes, I work on the novel.
I'm too chaotic to even write it down. I let things constantly evolve in my head until I write it down in the story. World development changes until I'm happy with it, but the ideas bounce around in my head until they hit paper in a story. Then they rarely change, and continuity relies on what I've already written. I wish I had those chapters of that fantasy story I'd written so long ago. I had people that had no interest in fantasy wanting more. I find that this way of writing makes my story feel less like it is some sort of planned out epic and more like a real life struggle.
Oh my gosh, I'm ashamed to even admit how chaotic my notes are for the novel I've decided to write. I haven't even started writing, and I already have about 30 different word documents of notes, plot lines, little snippets of scenes in my head, sentences, character descriptions, and more. The worst part though is that they're not organized in that there's one document for each thing. One might have the first plot line I thought of and some random sentences that came to mind. Another might have half of a slightly tweaked plot line with part of a scene written out and one sentence about the MC. Another might have part of a character profile. Another might have my to do list for the day with random character info under that. I don't recommend doing things this way.
I apologize if this is dumb question, but how should I write a coming of age story? What can I focus on or how should I start it?
That's too vague a question to have a meaningful answer. There is no 'best' way to write one. There are as many different good ways of doing it as there are good authors to write one.
Could you tell everything you know about coming of ago stories? I just want to write a something meaningful.
It is a really vague question, but having an interesting character or a protagonist that readers can feel invested in would be a really good start. What's also important, especially for the type of story you're interested in, is that there has to be room for your character to grow or change. As mentioned above, do a search on the term Bildungsroman and have fun.
If you read enough coming of age stories written by others, you'll come up with an answer to your question without even realising it. Pick up a few books with a similar topic, and read them. Don't 'study' them, just watch. When you write your own, you'll have a much clearer idea of how to do it than you do now.
yes, to learn what you need to know about writing one, all you have to do is read/study the best examples of that genre...
It sounds like the OP is looking for a recipe: "Take one semi-ripe teenager; marinate in teen crisis; add 1/4 cup of angst and a teaspoon of parental indifference..." It doesn't work that way. For one thing, anything written in such a way would be the textbook definition of formula writing. "Scientific workability" might have been Julia Child's motto, but not William Shakespeare's. For another, the mere fact that one asks such a basic general question means that one has not actually conceptualized what story one wants to tell, and that really has to come first. So, I will echo the excellent advice of [MENTION=52325]blackstar21595[/MENTION], [MENTION=10315]Gallowglass[/MENTION] and [MENTION=373]mammamaia[/MENTION] - go, thou, and read. And may The Force be with you.
Hello Loudwolf, This is going to sound all new agey and stuff but I can tell you precisely how to start, write it. If a coming of age story is in you and you write often enough it will come out. Drop out of the forum this moment and just start writing without thinking about it. That's exactly what I do nearly every day. Want to see if it is working for me? Web search "Touch" by Kelson Hargis. My coming of age story will be among the top returns. It's free and around 1000 words or so. Then click my image on the site if you'd like to know more about me. By the way I love to review as well so if there is anything out there PM me. I'll look for your stuff on here now. Best of luck, ~Kelson
I agree with the suggestions of reading the works of this type you find to be best and thinking about how the author approached the work and why you think the approach was effective.
