It has less to do with my actual skill as a writer (though that may be chronic as well in some places) and much more with how my story ideas come to me. Most, if not all of my ideas don't come out as like, plots, or even a *premise* oh no, it's always like, the beginning bits of world building (for original stuff at least) and the rest is just...characters interacting. So many of my ideas are often like, a single scene or a group of short scenes of characters interacting. (Sometimes I amuse myself by imagining how Cinema wins guy would react to some of these moments) Sometimes those scenes have purpose, like how Hound and Fox eventually became a full story idea. Others aren't so lucky, they just sit in my brain rent free and play on repeat dozens of times. How do you guys handle your 'plots' that come to you like this? I've been trying to shake this habit for years, I'm like the ultimate pantser and I'd like to move forward to more structured writing. I also feel kind of bad just ignoring these ideas, but I feel even worse when I get super into it, write it for three chapters, then abandon it after I get stuck. Some of these concepts are quite fun (to me at least) and I'd like to give them the respect they deserve.
I know that much haha, my issue is some of these ideas are so short that I can't really come up with a plot. Most of these scenes would be sub 5 minutes in animation, the lucky ones are probably closer to 10 and feature actual character growth. Hound and Fox was one of the lucky ones because about the fifth time it popped up as a whole scenario even if it's simple. Sometimes I have ideas for the worlds that the story takes place in, but struggle to come up with an actual story. Sometimes I'll have an idea for the story but struggle to build the world it takes place in. I guess where I often get stuck is not knowing where to you know 'start' if that makes sense? Not so much with where the story begins but like, what parts of the story to plan out ahead of time or not.
Maybe try writing as flash fiction or short stories instead of trying to stretch them out, then if you want to take them further they might develop more naturally?
One thing you can do is keep folders for each story and add ideas whenever they occur, After a while you'll have enough ideas in each folder to work with. It's always gonna start with just a handful of ideas, some of which won't fit with the others. But as you're developing the story it grows and takes on life and maybe your original idea isn't even part of it anymore. It does take quite a bit of development to turn those initial ideas into something resembling a story.
Kinda doing that though not as a flash fiction, I'm aiming for 6 chapters (two each for beginning middle and end) but I may even be able to knock it out in 5. In contrast my stories are usually 12-15 chapters big. It's kind of weird to say when I don't have any ideas for the plot with some of these, but sometimes the premise feels too 'big' to do a flash fiction. Despite having very little to show for the 'whole' idea. Might give it a go though. Isn't flash fiction typically like one chapter long, maybe two? @Xoic That's not a bad idea, even if I don't intend to write all those stories it might be good to get something about them down on paper.
Have you read many books about story structure? Or general writing advice? If you want to learn how to turn raw ideas into a story that's the way to go.
I'll likely end up doing that since I can't seem to get myself moving on that front without guidence. I'll probably try to find some good books.
Yeah, this is the way ideas come to many people, in short bits and pieces that don't really stand on their own. How you get from that first spark to an actual story varies a lot from person to person, but I'll give you my personal experience. I have hundreds of these suckers, most of which I acknowledge I'll never get around to writing, and mostly just sit on them, playing out scenes in my imagination (also often on repeat with slight variations), taking characters and letting them run free. I do it for fun, but often it starts to flesh things out, helps me figure out which ones actually have the potential to turn into a novel, which ones are going to stick with me and which ones fizzle out. When one edges out of the crowd, I pin that sucker on a page and start brainstorming in a targeted manner. What I brainstorm depends on what I have so far. I've got this one character and an ill-defined steampunk setting? Let's brainstorm some conflicts that could drag this agoraphobic teenage clockpunk inventor into the limelight. I test out these different ideas, imagine how they might play out. When I run across something I like, I stick a pin in that too and start brainstorming around it as well. The more ideas, the crazier ideas the better, characters, scenes, settings, twists, tropes whatever. I'm not going to use all of them, or even most of them, they're giving me material to work with later, the wool to knit the sweater. At this point, I've got enough of an idea to start actually outlining, which is where things like story structure come into the mix, though I never stop brainstorming (indeed, my outlining process is a chaotic disaster which works extremely well for me and I would never recommend to anyone else).
There can be a step between brainstorming and outlining I think. You have to get the ideas to connect up in a way that starts to suggest a story. So you need a main character, an antagonist, and their conflict. That's what a story really is, the rest is just complications along the way. Then it helps to know some things about story structure, character creation, and story mechanics etc so you have a lot of options for how to construct it well, and know the kinds of mistakes to avoid. I can list a few of the major components of story. There's going to be an inciting incident very close to the beginning, something that happens that forces the MC out of his comfortable life and into the adventure. It's like an explosion that changes everything and then the rest of the story is him either trying to get things back to the way they used to be, or working through all kinds of obstacles to achieve whatever his goal is. The action keeps getting more intense as it goes forward. Each encounter is more powerful and more dangerous, and there are reversals of fortune several times. A reversal of fortune means if things seem to be in the MC's favor for now, then suddenly that flips and everything is against him. he's on top, and then his life is just screwed. But a little later another reversal, and he's kicking ass again. Ideally these reversals also get more intense each time, the stakes get higher. None of this is set in stone of course, it's a rough guideline. But it all leads up to the big climax where they have the final encounter and somehow the MC pulls a trick out of his hat that's perfect but the readers couldn't see it coming. Looking back though, it seems completely inevitable, like it was the only way it could go. I probably massively oversimplified it, but I mean, I just jotted a few paragraphs off the top of my head. It's just my Cliff Notes version, ok? Plus I made it sound like it all has to be pure action, but that's not true at all. The conflict can be internal or external, and it can be emotional rather than physical. But still, if you're writing genre fiction (aka narrative story form) it will more or less follow this form. With something like this in mind you can start to drop your rough ideas in and then understand what still needs to be filled in to make it a story.
oh yeah, that's how it works for me every time. it starts with one thing that is interesting enough that i keep tending to it. like the story i'm working on now started from me thinking about a feature of a magic system that my friend and main reader thinks is really bad and just wants to throw a book across the room when they encounter it...but i like this thing? I think it's neat? I mean I accept that it's totally nonsensical but i still LIKE it. so I was idly thinking, "how could I use this device in a magic system in a way that my friend will actually like?" while washing the dishes and it clobbered me in the middle of scrubbing a pot. so I dried my hands and wrote it up and sent it to them and they were like "damn you. you made it make sense!" so then I had to do it, lol well okay. I have done detailed, meticulous scene by scene outlines before, and I kind of hate them because it's a lot of work, and then there's nothing left to discover and drafting is a chore. but my writing is structured because I studied story structure from short fiction, novels, movies, and television. I know, generally, what the basic shape and rhythm of a story is, and what pieces go where, and when--and I basically trust my knowledge of that structure to guide me through writing the story. so when I have a stray scene in my head, I'm watching it unfold, but i'm also thinking about what kind of scene it is and what act it belongs in. obviously a scene where the two main characters meet for the first time is an act one scene, and the scene where the main character makes the first decision to do something about the dramatic situation of the world and takes action in a way that they can't take back is in the space where act one transitions into act two, and the more subtle and difficult to place scenes kind of get chucked into a general holding area. But I spend a long time thinking about several things at once. Because I write Fantasy, I think about magic systems and worldbuilding as well as character, dramatic situation, theme, plot, and setting. I don't do these things in a tidy, organized sequence. It just kind of gets everywhere as I jump from thing to thing, and gradually I build up the ingredients until it's too big to hold in my head, and I have to start writing it down. i'm going to make a guess here, and suggest that you give your ideas your full attention and tend them longer before you start writing the story. wait until you have developed the essential characters (everyone who gets POV in your story, absolutely, but also your antagonists. especially them!) and then wait until you have figured out the dramatic situation and what it leads up to. also spend some time learning how to make character action be the meaningful thing that shapes the story--a lot of people starting up just come up with a series of events and then they're done to the character, and that can feel a bit drab a lot of the time.
I do this all the time and I had similar concerns. But then I learned about how they shoot movies. There is only one movie I could find that was shot in sequence...Second Hand Lions, because the director thought it would be easier on child actor Haley Joel Osment. Pretty much everything else is shot based on time and location and pieced together at the end. So I adopted the strategy to my writing. I get visited by Lady Muse, write the scene as it is in my head, sights, sounds, smells, characters, etc. Then I set it aside and work on other portions of my story. When I get to that scene, I splice it in and keep working. Sometimes I have to tweak it a bit for timing and cadence but having it done ahead of time works out well in my experience.
I write down scenes if they're stuck in my head. I don't have a lot of brain real estate, so my mental capacity gets diminished in all areas if I don't get the ideas out. If you're interested in those scenes having the same impact for other people as they do you, they will need to be part of a story. I suggest taking the time to write a story that you consider to be 'basic' or 'typical' or even 'easy.' Plotting takes practise among other things.
