Just now I can't even remember anymore the start of my current WIP. How I had imagined this to play out, or where it would go. The characters which would raise their faces. Strange how a story proliferates. Anyone else wondering? Do tell
I do, but I never realised it would grow into what it did. I wrote this drabble, back when I was writing them a lot: Once And Future And I mailed it out to people just like I'd done with all the rest. I got so much response back that I thought maybe I was on to something.
How my story started is still part of my story, just not the beginning anymore. It's always that way with me. The first scene to gel in my head seems like an opening scene, I write it like an opening scene, but it never is. It's always really somewhere about three chapters in.
Ooh I do like that a lot Do write please!! Really? I just get a character speaking, a whole person and I have to flail about in finding the story behind, or the other POV's Just wrote one starting scene for one of these others for the third! time. Cribbles!
I remember scenes that I thought were the beginning, but were actually in the middle, or even at the end. Or having characters that really worked better in completely different stories entirely. It's fascinating to see where your characters take the story.
It's really not that different for me. It's just that instead of a character coming forward with some stuff to say, a scene comes forward with some people in it. I think about what's going on with them, what brought them here, what connections do they have with one another. I usually have an immediate feel for who the center of things is, but I'm not always 100% on this. I've had the love interest become much more interesting to me than the person who was the initial MC, so they trade places. I've had characters that amount to extras on a movie set catch my eye and make me think, "No, wait a minute, you look too interesting to just be 'Restaurant Patron #6', so I pull them forward and they get a real part. I often liken my writing process to making a film. It makes it easier for me to be dispassionate about recasting rolls or dropping a character that isn't working out, or giving a better roll to someone who looks like this may be their 'break-out' moment.
Well if that is how it works for you who am I to argue? I guess I am at least half a planner, so while the first MC stays (I wouldn't dare to replace him, oh the chaff he'd make for me!), the other cast is up for grabs. Usually I rely on intuition when going forward, who should have a part. Sometimes, like just about now, I find an imbalance and think about how to remediate it. That's how I got stuck with one new POV and six! characters trailing
Haha The process can certainly be entertaining in and of itself, aye? One of my two WIP's started long, long ago in this little ditty I wrote for the Short Story Contest. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/short-story-contest-37-theme-the-value-of-innocence-submission-details-thread.18049/#post-357300 More than anything, it was a fantasy homage to the "dinner at Brideshead" scene from Brideshead Revisited. That scene still exists in the story, much further in and very changed in tone since the two main characters have changed dramatically. The narrator of that little short story is still the MC, but the fish-out-of-water nervousness is gone because he acquired a life while I was writing him and a reason not to be so intimidated. The love interest is no longer the nose-in-the-air lord who I originally wrote. If anything, he's the the shy one now with confidence issues to overcome. It's grown and grown. Maybe one day it will get finished. Maybe not. I enjoy writing it, which for me, is the important part.
I remember all of the starts distinctively, which is pretty surprising since my memory is immensely meager at times.
WIP came to be by combining three parts, being; several short stories, a bigger one (the main thing) and one that I got the idea from a prompt on this site. My ideas either come from dreams, or suddenly 'seeing it', or by meditating on how it's going to evolve. The main thing was... a dream that was about a guy having to cross a beach, get into a jungle and having to dive into a lake and remain below the surface, uncomfortably long. Well, it was significant because of the context, he was being chased and needed to hide, only to find himself get deeper into trouble. I put it on paper right away, and it became a real adventure, and to this day, as a stand alone story my biggest and earliest work.
