1. AbleArcher

    AbleArcher Member

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    How to transition from brainstorming to hours on the type writer

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by AbleArcher, Aug 8, 2014.

    If people can share their methods from when they stop brainstorming to writing i would be very curious.
    How much foundation do you build before the house gets started????????????
     
  2. stevesh

    stevesh Banned Contributor

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    Not much. I usually start writing as soon as I come up with the basic idea for the story.
     
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  3. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    Every person and every story is different. For my first WIP, I didn't do much brainstorming, just let it come as I wrote. But my second WIP, I planned it completely before I started writing.
     
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  4. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I sit and daydream at my laptop. Fog out till there is no blank space before me, until I'm actually in a visual mind space that's churning out scenes. Till I can actually hear, faintly, my character's talking. When I get to the point when I can feel something - a tone, a vibe from the scene - I start typing.
    Tapping into the tone of the scene is the hardest thing for me cause it's really the thing that's going to act like a rudder for the piece.

    For short stories there is no real foundation just hints, words, images, maybe a first line. For a short I've been struggling to finish for years - I started with an idea a psychiatrist that discovers his son is a sociopath, then typed the first lines that came to me - There is something wrong with Vosslo.

    For novels there's a bit more brainstorming involved, more daydreaming, ideas & happenings jotted down and then semi-organized into an escalation towards climax. But everything for me is pretty loose.
     
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  5. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    I brainstorm during the day when I'm doing other stuff or with one particular friend who I bounce my ideas off. The writing trouble comes at night. I can sit at my laptop all day and write three words. Come 10ish at night, and my muse starts to kick in. Come bedtime (11) and my muse just won't let me go. Midnight comes and the fingers are still dancing on the keyboard. That's when I leave a sentence half finished and go back to it the following night. This will happen every night for about a week and then I will have a few days where nothing new happens and all I do is edit and research what I've already written.
     
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  6. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    Doing the research tends to take more time than brainstorming for me. As I work out the story line I not the things I don't know and that sends me off on more research. Usually it is not more than a week before I start writing.
     
  7. maskedhero

    maskedhero Active Member

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    I find it important to built the 'universe' and the basic framework first. Then I build key points, and craft those. Then I get into the day dreaming, trying to figure out the route that they take. Revisions are constant.

    In the end, it ends up in a good place.
     
  8. A Green Mark

    A Green Mark New Member

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    I give myself a minimum I Have to write each day. Whether I want to or not. It starts off a smaller time and over time increases and I start with shorter writing. Or if you have something in mind. I start with writing down the outline then I pick a chapter and I go, remembering it doesn't have to be amazing.
     
  9. HidesHisEyes

    HidesHisEyes New Member

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    I generally have a lot of trouble with this. For the story I've just begun I am using the process described by the author Mary Robinette Kowal, which is sort of like this:

    - Core idea: the story summed up in a sentence, or just the premise, or the cool first sentence you spontaneously came up with, etc.

    - "Thumbnail": a one-paragraph description of what happens in the story, the beginning, middle and end.

    - Synopsis: a more in-depth synopsis where the story's structure and the chain of cause-and-effect that gets you from the start to the finish, emerges.

    - Outline: an even more in-depth outline, broken down into scenes.

    - Write the story.

    I actually skipped "thumbnail" for the story I'm writing now. But I've written about 1400 words and found it much, much easier than I ever have in the past. I'm thinking of revising the outline as I'm not sure about what I have, but this is no big deal really. It's much easier to revise a 500-word outline of a story than a 5000-word actual story.

    Hope that's helpful. It certainly seems like a process that's going to help me. But as someone above me said, everyone has their own way of working.
     
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  10. PensiveQuill

    PensiveQuill Senior Member

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    I rarely even have a complete story idea before I launch into hours on the keyboard. Usually it's just an idea, for a character, a place, or even a fantasy world and then I amuse myself by just sitting down and spilling forth thoughts on a page. But then I am also practised at automatic writing as a meditation exercise for this kind of releasing the floodgates on the mind is familiar to me.

    I won't say that I launch into chapters exactly but a long text wall in which thoughts, link with other thoughts until inspiration strikes. I might sit on that for a while and let it percolate in my mind, then finally threads of a real story emerge and characters join the mix to create something from which a logical sequence and chapters can be born.

    For me the feel and sound of fingers on a keyboard is a meditative exercise that merely allows the creative process to bloom. I cannot get story idea's while doing anything else. So my laptop is my muse in way.
     
  11. Jaro

    Jaro Active Member

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    I love to begin writing as soon as I even have a simple idea. It could be a single sentence's worth of information and that is all I really need. After I have begun I may flesh things out in my mind during times when I can't be at the computer, come up with various 'signpost' moments I would like to achieve with the story, and then hash it all together once I can sit down to it.
     

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