how does it happen? I feel blind to this process. I have written dozens and dozens (maybe close to a hundred) of scenes in the past couple years, 2 short stories, 1 very bad novella (30k words) first draft. But it's almost like it feels impossible to turn the images/scenes/first few pages, into something resembling a true story- even more impossible a NOVEL of 50k words. How the hell is it done? I know all the advice says 'there should be somewhere the character is really trying to get to, and an obstacle' but very often I can't think of one that can carry a whole novel. how does this materialize from your first idea of a scene or a character? I am seriously at my wits end figuring out how to do this. I have been writing fiction for 2 years and 99% of the time it's just a scene or a few pages that goes nowhere...WTF? Am I too boring to write a full novel? too shallow? have I been too sheltered all my life that I have no stories to tell? (I am 30 years old) Someone please help me. I don't know where to go next and am wasting my life. All I want to do is write fiction but right now I'm garbage at it.
First of all, can you pinpoint what made you write that (or any) particular scene? Don't overthink it, or expect an entire plot to suddenly surface. Instead, try writing the 'next' scene. Where do the events in that scene lead? Not long term, but the very next 'thing.' Or you can try writing the scene that came before? What do you think caused that scene to happen? Don't worry about wasting time. Just get a grip into whatever the scene conjures up for you. Is it a personality? Or an event? Or a potential event? A setting? An encounter? Even a mood? Sooner or later, if you keep building 'what ifs,' a pattern or direction will emerge. While yes, your protagonist must have a goal and an obstacle, they don't need to have these things in place when you begin writing. You can begin anywhere with anything. Begin with what he feeds his dog and how the dog reacts to it. Begin with her anxiety about a new job. Begin with somebody meeting an old friend by accident (or on purpose.) Begin with the collapse of a building. Begin with the start of a voyage. Begin with the death of a partner. Begin with the end of a war. Begin with the birth of a child. Begin with the arrival of a new computer. Begin with a character's annoyance at somebody else's incompetence. However, once you've got your scene and the next scene in place, you need to beaver into the thing. Force yourself to keep creating, based on that scene (which can be changed, any time you want to change it, as other things occur to you.) Just try to think of what would happen next, as a result of that scene. Or what caused the scene. This process will, sooner or later, produce what you want. A direction. A vision. A way for your story to go.
Think of the events leading up the scene. You could even do one of those stories where sh*t hits the fan in the beginning, and then it goes "X-time ago" and explains what the hell happened to get to this point.
My 1.6-book-on-its-way-to-5-books WIP series started with a character (a woman illegally genetically engineered to be born with wings, the first such human ever) and grew out of a series of questions that arose around that character: why was she created, given how difficult it was to do so ? how can she fly with such a low wing-area-to-weight ratio ? -- If she can't fly, why does she have wings? how will people react to her ? how will she cope with it all ? Answering each of these questions raised new questions, and answering those questions ... you get the idea. And then there were thematic questions I wanted to address. Interesting stories are all about answering questions: will girl get boy? Will world get saved? What's for lunch? As an author, we should always be asking ourselves questions about our WIPs, and then answering them.
Same position as you over here. And it's effing hard. When I wrote short-fiction and fan-fic (as a kid) I used to wonder why writers bitched about it being so hard. That was because I all ready had plots and characters developed by other people. Or it was so short I could write it in one day. I've also read all the advice and followed The three Act structure and the Hero's Journey. Watched countless youtube videos on developing plots and characters and I am still struggling to turn one idea I had into an actual novel. One person suggested the "Yes but, no and." Game. You could look that up and try. It's mostly just for brain storming and to ensure tension is always rising and something is always happening. Sometimes giving your character a clear goal, motivation and conflict helps. You could plan backwards or forwards with the current scene you have. Or ask someone to work with you. So you tell them your scene and they ask questions and just answer them. That can be helpful.
When I start a novel, it frightens the life out of me with the scope of it: the time it takes to write, to research, to edit, to get it beta read, edited, proofed, put through production... and it drowns me. So I go in now with just one scene in mind. Doesn't matter if it's the beginning, middle, or end scene: it's a scene. And I do lots of scenes like that, never planning a novel on paper. All I have is a rough sketch in my mind and a gut instinct for writing a scene that I 'feel' like writing that day. Then at the end, I re-thread plot through those scenes and tie the novel together, with 2nd edits focusing on character continuity, tension, etc. If I see a novel, I can't write it, so I go small and often. It's what works for me, and you'll find your own path into it. Two years isn't long to be writing at all: you're still feeling your way through it. You've done what most can't, though, and you've finished a scene. That's something to be proud of. The rest is just one step at a time and figuring out what works for you.
Cool scenes aren't stories. If you want to write a story you have to create a plot. There are many "standard" plots, but they all do similar things, so I would look at Campbell's Hero's Journey and design a basic plot for yourself keeping in mind the problem and characters from your scene. But I do not think that you can simply expand a scene into a story - there has to be a problem to overcome and a process to it with all the usual ups and downs.
This is absolutely true. I'm a huge fan of a great scene, but if I were to see my favorite scenes (from book, show, or film) out of context I wouldn't be half as impressed. That doesn't stop me from imagining great scenes in my head and wanting to flesh them out in storytelling, though. The easiest way to get around just writing scenes for me is to apply a little introspection. What do the scenes mean to me? Are they eliciting an emotional response? What is it? Do the scenes involve people or characters I care about? What are the specific parts I care most about? Answering these questions (which is hard, btw) is useful in starting the basis for a plot. Novels are typically written because they mean something to the author and have a goal of some type. For some authors they're weaving in true-to-life experiences that they hope will help readers in similar scenarios--for others the point of their novel is their character's growth, or the tragic end of the villain. There's almost always a story outside of the basic plot, and the plot in these cases is more like a medium off which the author can motivate the characters. All that aside, there's nothing wrong with just writing scenes right now. I did copywork for three years before I started my own stories. Once I started writing creatively, I did just what you are saying. Or, I bummed plots I liked and reworked them to include different characters, settings, etc., and practiced seeing the story through. You'll get there, but you're still new to it. Let your own personal routine develop, your mind absorb the new skill it's learning, and try to relax. Everyone has their own advice--but advice is just that, advice. Not an obligation or a "have to." There's no one formula for writing. You aren't expected to be doing anything but what you are, and if you stop stressing and start enjoying the process instead, you'll get where you want to go in short time. This might be because you're trying too hard to be original, or you're just not interested in that part of creative writing yet. Worrying about it won't inspire new ideas. Besides which, I don't think I believe in this advice. At least, I don't believe it starts there. Should there be somewhere the character is trying to get to? Or a place where you're trying to get to? My characters all want what I want...to be left at peace in their homes. Circumstances drive them to uphold their passions in a much more dynamic, story-worthy way. But the circumstances are a ploy of mine to bring out the best of my characters in truly tangible fashion. It is how I get them to see who they really are. Are there any characters you'd like for them to know who they truly are? What situations could potentially put them in the predicament of having to act cowardly or bravely? If they chose to act bravely, why do you think that would be? Ultimately, characters represent living people, so it is my firm opinion we should treat them like real people, and develop stories around who they are. Not vice versa. Years of practice and life experiences. I ask myself all the questions I told you first and determine who the character is, who they could be, and what they need to learn in order to become better. The answers are based off what I find value in. Example: I had a scene in my head of an older man watching a toddler play in rain puddles in his front lawn. The thought warmed my heart. Why? Who is this old man and what is he feeling? He's a war vet, been living alone, bitter against the world for thirty years. This toddler has taught him how to open his heart again and he'd risk everything to save them. He loves the toddler, I determined--but he isn't related to them. He rescued them. The town has been seized by civil war rebels and they're in an apocolyptic-type setting. He's sad because he's developing parkinson's and worries he won't be able to protect the toddler much longer. BAM. Plot. What's he going to do in this dire situation? What would he be motivated to do? He has to leave town (dangerous) and find a family to place the tot in. The above is me just thinking about it. Next phase is filling in the blanks, which I, personally, like to do by the seat of my pants, because it inspires the most realistic responses to situations. What's important is that I've managed to outline the motivations, basic goal and situation of the character, as well as who they are and what they need to learn. That will propel the story forward without knowing the plot to its end. But the ease by which I busted that out is misleading. This is practiced creative storytelling. Creativity is a muscle that must be flexed, stretched, and spun around manually until it has developed enough to be its own inspiration. This is true for any skill. Crochet, for example, begins with knotting string hundreds of times in a straight line. The first fifty times you do it every knot is a different size. Bummer. Then one day they're all the same size. Then you progress to magic circles. Crocheting in the round. Fancy knotwork. Until eventually you have the basics down so well that you start 3D sculpting with knots and coming up with your own designs. <--That's also how creativity works. Master the basics, like you're doing, and you'll be fine. Karate Kid (1984) it! Hope my advice helps. Good luck!
Hope this isn't too harsh... but do you have an imagination? You obviously get excited by a scene. Does the excitement lead to you wanting to know how it ends? Instead of someone telling you the end, write it.
Why are you writing what seems to be stand-alone scenes instead of focusing on stories. Scenes mean nothing without the overall concept. I don't write scenes. I write stories. Yes, there are scenes in my stories, but my goal is always to write a story. I don't need a collection of puzzle pieces. That's not how I work and I can't even imagine trying to make your approach work. We're not playing connect to dots. That seems like an awfully hard way to go about it. Scenes bring stories to life, but without the foundation of an actual story they are little more than just scribbles.
In all honesty, it's no different to writing down an out-of-context thought you have that might lead to a good story. It's just on a larger scale, and falling into freestyle, where you get an idea and just run with an idea without worrying if structure is right/wrong, if grammar, syntax, and punctuation are at their best. Just because the approach is different, doesn't mean it's a game of dot-to-dot. It's just a method to start the writing process. Good on the OP for finding his/her comfort zone when it comes to learning how to step into writing, because that's what he's saying: that he's struggling with learning to move on from that. Some go on to learn how to shape that into a story, some can't and need to come at it from another way. I was taught a similar freestyle approach in university, and since then scenes I have written have gone to fashion full stories, some haven't, but bits of conversation in it have been re-used because they match character voice and plot. But I'm a puzzler in general, where I won't plan a novel on paper and I won't write scenes in order. I have a rough idea of where I want it to go, but I don't plan it out on paper because that, conversely, commits me to a set box to write within. That's my hang-up: how committing plot to paper hinders, not helps. I'm on book 8 of a series, and the only physical tie I have outside of that series is a style sheet to make sure continuity over style choices my editor needs to know. I just need a damn good memory for the rest. But if you write down or note pieces of out-of-context conversation that you think might lead to a new story, then you do the same as Rohan, just on a smaller scale. But to be honest, imho, Writing is one huge puzzle with dozens of ways to pull it all together, and it doesn't stop shifting shape until it's out on the market.
I don't know about scenes, but I've expanded a short story into a novel, and I did it by asking myself how the characters got to that scene, and what they did after that scene. And then I added more drama. Do your scenes have characters and conflict and all the standard elements of fiction, or are they more like vignettes? If they've already got conflict and characters, then... expand. If you write a scene about a brave cat facing down a horrible dog, the novel could be the cat's birth as the smallest of her litter, her struggles to overcome every adversity, her romantic interest in the handsome tom next door, and then the growing menace of the horrible dog in the neighbourhood. He harassed her when they were babies, but now they're grown up, our cat has kittens to protect, and that dog WILL NOT HURT THEM even though he's already mangled the kittens' father... whatever. Expand. (Side note... 50K is REALLY short for a novel, unless you're writing YA or really specialized literary. You probably want to shoot for more like 80K.)
My current WIP came from a jacket I was wearing and a casual comment by a co-worker. And now I'm over 70k in, with about 2-3 more chapters to go. Take a favorite scene and start thinking about the people in it. What are their passions? What are their motivations? What do they want from life? What are their flaws? What holds them back from getting what they want? I've found that my characters drive my story and often dictate my plot. I might plan that Joe declares his love for Sally, who thought he hated her, and then Sally falls for Joe. But as I'm writing, I might realize....Sally isn't going to just fall for Joe. She thought he hated her. Sally thinks Joe is screwing with her, and she lashes out and tells him to go to heck. Know you characters wants and needs and drive and flaws, and they will take you where they need to go. Yes, you will need a general direction, an overall plot. But the details will often work themselves out if you really know your characters. Think about that favorite scene. Pick a MC. Really think about them. Then think of a premise: What if a (girl, boy, man, woman, child) who (lacked confidence/had trust issues/was overconfident/some other flaw) faced a (sudden death/war/natural disaster/family emergency/other major problem) and had to (find their inner strength/accept that they cannot do everything/gain self-confidence/overcome their flaw) in order to (save the world/be happy/help the town/keep the farm/solve the problem). And go from there.
I tend to pants, which is to say that I only have a hazy idea where i'm going when I start writing and I make it up as I go along For example Wrey posted a blog about how his fears as a gay man in an increasingly right wing America - I said as a throw away comment in regard of forced conversion therapy "If that happens I'll come rescue you" And thus the basic idea for Darkest Storm was born 65k words later we have British gun for hire Dusty Miller going to a neo fascist future America to rescue his friend Aldo from the treatment camps which then span out into a road trip across the states from the bayou to the great lakes, and then them stealing a float plane to escape into Canada and nearly getting shot down by an F15 (Dusty talks the pilot out of splashing them - essentially by reminding him of his oath to protect and defend the constitution) Point is when I started writing I already knew the Dusty character because he'd also featured in a short story, but I had no idea what would happen or how it would end beyond the very simple premise (subsequently Dusty has become my main character and has 8 books about his exploits - 5 published 3 in progress)
It's working for me. My novel, the first draft of which is about eighty percent done (and I can see an ending--really, I can see three or four and I have to pick one), is assembled from a collection of puzzle pieces, though I see them more as quilt squares. Patchwork. Now, it’s not pure randomness. The scenes were about approximately the same people in approximately the same setting--it's not as if I started totally from scratch with every single scene. And they were driven by emotion, which, I realized as I went along, required conflict, and conflict is story. IMO. But not infrequently, the conflict was created for the scene. I've mentioned somewhere else that I have a whole emotion-filled scene with Character 1 trying to bully Character 2 into doing something, using all sorts of tactics of emotional blackmail, and then backing off when he's gone too far and he can't bear his own tactics any more.... but I didn't know, and I still don't know, WHAT he wanted to bully her into doing. Many of the scenes do string together, eventually--like patches into a quilt square. And then, after a little cutting and restitching, they attach to other groups--like a quilt square attaching to another quilt square. And now I have most of a quilt top. This isn't efficient. (I'll probably end up writing 300K for a 100K novel.) It isn't systematic. But a long piece of writing is growing, which never happened before for me. So for the original poster, I'd suggest, pick some scene that you find engaging, and write another scene with those characters in that setting. (Not the same room, but the same world, and probably the same city. And you can totally add characters, but keep at least one or two from before.) And another. And another And another. Even if they're arguing about burned toast or making exact change for the bus. Something might happen.
Ask yourself, about each character,"Who is this person?" Then "What does he/she want?" I also ask, "What's his/her deepest secret?" For me, that's enough to take off. I never plot or outline. The plot weaves together as I go, then I go back and tighten the stitches. Well-rounded characters are the key for me, because well-rounded characters have clear wants and needs and backstories and things that have happened to them and will happen to them. If that's not enough for you to get going, add another question: "Who or what might keep him or her from getting that thing?" (I do ask that question, obviously, but I ask it as I'm writing. Some writers need the answer before they write.) Then add these: "How do they keep the MC from getting it?" "What does the main character do in response?"
Novels usually have more than just one or two characters in them as well. If you start envisioning scenes with other people, then see how you can hook them together with your original scene, that will help. Characters influence other characters. Setting also influences characters. As do events. So maybe move the characters to another setting (if they're indoors, take them outdoors and vice-versa.) Give them an event to deal with. It can be a happy one (going to a dance on Friday.) Or a scary one (someone is coming tomorrow who might take your dad away.) Or a sad one (you hear that your best friend has just been killed in a car crash.) There isn't any real substitute for just sitting back and thinking this through ...without panic. Have fun with it, but STICK TO IT. Don't run away because the solution isn't right there at the start.
Do you never finish writing a scene and wonder, 'what comes next?' Does your interest in those characters and their world end there? Why exactly do you want to write a novel? It sounds like you're focusing too much on what you want the end-product to look like rather than having a story you desperately want to tell. The easiest way to write a novel is to have a genuine passion for what you're putting on the page. Write about characters you love in a setting you're keen to learn more about. Be your own biggest fan and that excitement in your own work is what will keep you writing scene after scene. When you enjoy what you are working on it can begin to feel as though it's writing itself. Your heart will race and ideas will keep bubbling up eager to make their way out into the world. Writing your first novel is a huge undertaking with a massive learning curve. If you're not excited enough about your story and where it's going then it will fizzle out. The solution is to find that one truly special idea (hopefully the first of many) and run with it.
My WIP started as a short story but I was too interested in the characters too keep them confined to a low page count. I now have the opposite problem you have - I have too many scenes and am trying to edit it down to a manageable number. I use goals - inner goals and exterior goals to keep the story going. And every main character gets them. My MC is a forty odd year old director/producer who has been out of work after strangling one of his stars on his TV series and is making a comeback after a seven year forced leave. He's creatively burnt out. Has a string of failed marriages and forgotten kids. What he wants is to be creative and win emmy's again - that's his exterior goal. His inner goal is more complicated. The young fourteen year old boy he hires is a creative genius, his father left him when he was four and he's not interested in fame. His goals are simple - he wants to be a writer and he wants to have a father again. By making the character have goals and backgrounds that somewhat clash with each other I now have the makings of some pretty good conflict. Because while the director struggles to be creative - the boy blows him away with his creativity. This sparks jealousy, theft, disappoint - a huge chain reaction. Meanwhile as the boy latches onto him as a substitute father the director is only interested in being a friend (to leech off the boy's creativity) and isn't dad material and this sparks an interesting chain reaction. This tension could go on forever but I lend fate a hand - introduce a third party character to upset the works and voila drag out the story for a full length (more than full length) story. What you don't need is characters that always cooperate with each other - you need good clashes. You need assertive characters. They also need challenges, impediments to reaching their goals. And give your story a good twist at just past the mid-point. I give the characters what they want before all hell breaks loose. And it takes the story in what I think is a fresh, unpredictable angle - I certainly never came up with it during the planning.
OP, I've been right where you are. How did I get out of it? I... don't really know. I know, that's not helpful. I'm sorry. I wish I knew (for my sake and yours). And I'm not going to sit here and say I didn't give up and perseverance pays off. I mean, I am. It does pay off, and I didn't give up... But that wasn't always true. For a while there, I did give up. I got depressed and I stopped writing for multiple years. I never decided not to pursue my dream of being a novelist... But for a long time I did nothing to further it and figured I'd lost my passion for it. Sad, but it happens. I was resigned to it. Then, out of the blue I got a review on a fanfiction piece I'd abandoned years before. Someone out there wanted me to finish it. And somehow that was enough to get me going. I finished it. It ended up being 22k or so. Probably the longest thing I'd finished up to that point. It had been fun. And it got me thinking. Was I really going to give up on my dream? The last time I'd tried to write a novel it was a disaster. (I wrote about that experience on my progress journal.) Such a disaster I'd given up noveling entirely. This time I decided I wanted to give it one more try. A real try. If I failed after that, I'd put my energy into something else. But if not... You know how people always say you can't wait for inspiration? It's good advice. But this time inspiration struck. And it struck hard. Maybe it had finally found fertile ground. I don't know. And it was inspiration for a fan fiction novel. Based loosely on the usual structure for the fandom I was writing for. I'm saying I was leaning heavily on other people's work. But it was fun. After a while I realized I wanted to keep writing. But even though lightning had struck once, I didn't know if it would strike again. I spent almost a year without a single idea for an original novel, and that terrified me. What if I'd rediscovered my passion for noveling only to find that I couldn't do it? So I did what I always do: I googled it. It turns out Google has a lot of advice on how to think up an idea for a story, some good, some not. I don't know if any one piece of advice or one method helped me more than the others. But I found, as I was struggling and reading all I could about it, that one day inspiration struck again. I was standing in the bathroom, doing my hair or something, thinkin' thoughts, and I was remembering my year of depression, how awful it was. I had just read Peter Brown's The Wild Robot, a fun middle grade book with a surprisingly deep and moving story. In the afterword, he talked about how he had realized one day that an animal's instincts kind of work similar to a robot's programming, and poof, an idea for a novel was born. Standing there in the bathroom I had the thought that having depression-- being unable to feel and enjoy things, or even act like a normal human being, even though you remember doing all that before, and could even go through the motions if you had to-- might also be a lot like being a robot. And poof, an idea for a novel was born. I had an idea-- and that was all I had: just the bare core of a concept. No plot, even. But I was excited about it. I couldn't wait to dive deeper, to see where this lead. I was passionate about it. And even though it's gone through so many changes that it doesn't bear any resemblance to that original concept, I'm about to finish the first draft with about 5-6 viable novel ideas in my notebook, waiting for their turn. OP, all this is to say that there is a way out of where you are right now. Your question resonated with me, because I've wondered that exact thing myself. For years, while wondering if I was really cut out to be a novelist, I would try and try to think of a subject I was passionate enough about to write a novel on, some issue I cared about or life challenge I'd overcome and wanted to share, and I couldn't think of a single thing. I wondered if I had the prose ability but not the chutzpah, the spark, that magic something that I knew was lacking. I wondered if I would be doomed to never write a novel even if I wanted to. And even though I just spent several paragraphs talking about it, I don't really know what it was that got me from that side of the chasm to this side. It feels like an uncrossable chasm, doesn't it? It did for me. And I didn't really do anything special: I didn't go to workshops or get touched by a magic fairy. I just kept googling my concerns and reading the many, many blog posts that came up. I read a few books on writing (most notably On Writing, by Stephen King) but not that many, really. And I wrote. I kept writing. I wrote a lot of garbage. But I didn't give up (except for when I did). I don't know what's going to get you across that chasm. You might have to hang by your fingertips for a while. But those hundred scenes you've written, those short stories, that 'very bad novella'? They aren't waste. They are practice. Don't discount them. Don't discount your efforts up to this point. I... didn't mean to talk this much. I hope something in all this helps. Your situation just resonated with me because I've been there too. Good luck. And follow the advice here, it's all good.
I'd look for hidden facets in the characters and the setting. Each character will have a unique backstory, a reason for being where they are, and personal ambitions for the future. These can produce conflicts with characters pulling in different directions. They can answer questions with a story from their past or simply reminisce after being reminded of something. Your setting too will have a backstory. I'd incorporate as much dysfunctionality as possible. Ask yourself, 'how can this feature not work properly, while still appearing to be a good idea in theory.' Hidden facets will have hidden facets of their own, seek and you will discover.
Great advice above. I've written scenes that didn't go anywhere. They just popped into my head and I put them down on paper, then filed them away for possible future use. I think I've only ever used one of them. I also didn't use it verbatim but reworked it to fit the individual characters. The book it wound up in did not start with that scene, I just wound up incorporating it into the work partway through the book. I guess my point is your scenes may or may not have future value. Never toss them out but do work on the suggestions others have provided.
The way a story develops really depends on the person. As strange as this may sound to some, some of my ideas have come from dreams, because mine are rather vivid. I've also intentionally developed characters out of a desire to do so. There's really a lot of ways to go about this. I've even had ideas that have never developed beyond that, ideas. For some reason it just never took off. One of the best ways to develop a story, is to get to know the characters because they are the driving force behind a the tale after all. Why are they doing what they do, what compels them. What do they have to gain or lose by this? Who or what is opposing them and why? Sometimes developing the setting also helps, because it gives insight in the characters, history, motivation, and so on. Here's another piece of advice, stop thinking and just write. What I mean by this is put fingers to keyboard, and just write the story. It'll likely turn out terrible and a total disaster, like my stories often do. The purpose is to explore and develop. You can have all sorts of ideas about a story, and until you write it, they're just that, ideas. Once put to word at length, they begin to go from idea, to plot. This is where a lot of development happens, and for me, where I get to know my characters, and what they're all about beyond a general description. You may end up writing the story several times before its finally finished and ready to publish.
