Way back in, I think it was the fifties, Ray Bradbury hosted a half-hour tv show. The Introduction of each show showed him sitting at a cluttered desk, books and manuscripts forming huge unstable piles. The rest of the room looked the same, cluttered with ... yes ... junk my mother wouldn’t have allowed in my bedroom. He’d say something like, to paraphrase: “People often ask where I get ideas for my stories. Well, here it is.” Then he’d wave his arms to encompass the room. It was a long way of saying he asked himself, “What if?” A fiction writer’s magic words. I also find those magic words helpful. As much as another magic phrase for a writer: “Fuck it!” The first phrase helps greatly in forming plots, while the second is equally helpful to relieve stress if that plot fails. Well, back to Hublocker’s question. If, at first, I can’t think of a plot, I’ll brainstorm over a newspaper, or maybe tv program. Then, sooner or later, I’ll find some phrase or fact where I can ask myself, what if? I never plot a story because I can’t seem to keep to a plot. Instead I make up a character OR recall an environment I’m familiar with. Usually one or the other. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll give a couple of examples off the top of my dome: For the first, I thinking of a detective or mystery story. I’ll start with a hard-boiled detective somewhat like Mike Hammer but with an important difference. What if he were blind? Okay, then what? Maybe he developed other senses, such as ... such as ... a radar sense along with acute smelling? Great. He could have a secretary ... nope, overdone. How about him picking up ten or twelve year old runaway girl? Why not? I have my MCs. Easy, what? Now, where are they. I don’t want Sci fi or pure fantasy except for his abilities, so I should pick a location and time period I’m familiar with. I got it! Chicago in the sixties, when I lived there. The next is easy. What would the MC do? Why, find and recruit his helper, of course. Then, what comes next? Why not answer a request in the newspaper. What? Hell, I have no idea. That’s up to them. I’m out of the process except for a little steering now and then. Next, how about a Sci Fi story? I want an oddball of some kind. Maybe a handsome nut job who inherited a dead uncle’s old spaceship. He takes an e-mail course on how to pilot it but has never been off the Earth in his life. Hey! Why not let him be afraid of outer space? So, he ... he hires a pilot. Of course it’s a beautiful alien from a faraway star system. Why not? Then I turn them loose, her as a pilot, maybe her sister riding along. Hmmm! Yeah. Since he’s so claustrophobic, he could spend most of his time in a windowless soundproof cabin, speaking to the others via viewphone. To add spice, the pilot broads could use his ship to rob others, space pirates and he doesn’t even notice? I don’t know because all I do is get the major characters set up in place and proceed to watch television, checking up on them once in a while. No, I've never written or designed these stories. Proly won't, neither. Charlie -- hvysmker.
My honest answer is opposition. The idea that I could latch on to something I either loved or feared, then take the opposite side. I hated the idea of writing for so long that I kept deliberately trying to write myself into a corner. What a backfire! Something in our head wants a good thing to work out, or a bad thing to not work out. I literally end up defending my characters, until I have to challenge myself to kill one off and see if it works, or bring one back etc. What if is critical, but I let it flow first, then try to flip or bash or twist to see if something pops - it always does. Challenge yourself, be ready to throw it out, turn it upside down... thank Gohd for cut and paste.
I like to just flow, but then usually during writing I think of something that would be really cool for much later in the story. I am by no means a professional of any sort though, so I'm not actually sure if this is a good idea.
I always have a rough idea at the start, it's the moment when a loose collection of events crosses that milestone where I mentally class it as a coherent plot. However, from there, it grows organically, and sometimes the end result bears very little resemblance to what it began as!
I try not to plot my stories, at least not in the sense of writing outlines . But then I prefer writing short stories, so I feel that any formal plotting would take away from the natural flow of the story. I do have the general idea of the story pretty firmly in mind, but I don't regard this the same as plotting. Which is not to say may stories don't have plots, they just tend to develop as the story progresses. I don't really like knowing where I'm going. For me, that's part of the pleasure I get out of writing. I believe if I wrote novels, I'd approach things differently. But I don't have to be concerned with that.
I almost always have a very bare-bones plot in mind, with an idea of who the main characters are and what the setting is like. I tend to think about what the main conflict is, and key/interesting scenes pop up in my head naturally. But I always struggle to get from Point A to Point B. Less "exciting" stuff has to happen in between the important scenes, and that is the part where I start to make things up as I go. So...I partially plan/partially go with the flow. I hate trying to plan out each chapter, because then it doesn't feel very natural. Later, when I go about editing, then I might tighten up the focus of the chapters and even add new ones for it to have a cleaner flow.
Personally, when I write I like to close my eyes and just follow my main characters trail of thought. When I am able to get inside of his head, I almost become the character, I can see everything he sees etc... Starting from a situation and building from there. That's my personal take.
I decided on not outlining for Evergreen to avoid unnatural plot holes. The idea came about after reading about the snowflake method. I started with one sentence about winter and expanded from there. The writing felt so natural it almost flowed onto the pages. I feel like I was meant to write this book. Also not knowing every single plot detail is really fun, it's like reading and writing a novel at the same time. My antagonist is a freaking dragon, how awesome is that? I never would have come up with that idea had I made an outline.
If you know the characters, setting, timeframe, then write a beginning and an end. Then write something that fits in the middle. Then do a Cantor set on it so to speak. Fill in two scenes that connect the other 3. Then add 4 scenes that connect those 5. Repeat till done. It would be easier to do if first you picked a genre and came up with an idea for a logline and premise. Then expand that to a blurb. Then a synopsis. You may want to iterate between the scenes and the synopsis as it expands to a full blown outline consisting of a beat sheet of scenes.
