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Sigerson
Note:
The original version of this post can be found at A reader asked me a question regarding the last set of stories that I posted. He wanted to know why all three stories started so similarly. I had posted a comment about all three stories starting from the same premise and they would naturally start the same way. Two other readers mentioned this same point, which makes me wonder why I posted the explanation. One reader actually liked the explanation and the idea of three stories starting at the same point but going in totally different directions. That got me thinking about the way that I start writing a story. I thought I would share my method with all of you. Usually it starts when I visualize a scene that is quite vivid. Not all of the detail is present but there is enough that I can write a description that is strong enough to recreate it in my mind later on. Each of these scenes is about one page of single spaced text. The scene includes a description of the setting, time of day, number of people present, what the characters are doing there, what led them to be there, where they plan to go next. The characters are usually sketches at this point but the room or setting is described very well. There is no plot or story line at this point. The three Cabin stories all started with the scene of a truck driving up a mountain with a one male and one female occupant. The rough and twisting road with branches brushing against the windshield was the setting. The occupants of the vehicle were not described in the scene. I just specified that there was one male and one female in the truck. The ages and relationship of the two occupants was not important when I wrote down the scene. I got back to this opening scene about six months after I first wrote it down. I decided to try an experiment by creating three pairs of characters and creating a story out of each set. I kept the names of the characters the same in each story and even had the names usable by males and female. I wrote down the three pairs of characters and then developed a plot for each pair. The stories that came from this experiment were posted earlier this week. The first story took about one week to write and only went through one major rewrite and two proofreads. The other two stories took about two weeks to write and only went through one rewrite and one proofread each. By that time I was tired of the concept and getting my characters mixed up with each other because of the common names. For a time I was working actively on three stories at once. These scenes are not really story ideas. I do have files of those also but I have found that if the idea is not worth pursuing at the time I write it, it is usually not worth pursuing at all. All of the stories that I have posted have started as scenes not as story ideas. The writing classes that I took in college insisted that good stories come from strong characters. I have found this to be the case. They also insisted that we develop characters first. But I find those strong characters are difficult to develop without some context in which to place them. That is why I started using this scene-character-plot method of story development. Do any of you write this way? I can't believe that I am the only one. Based on my output of posted stories this does not appear to be an efficient way of writing. I have a several of these scene files that I can turn to when I need the beginning of a story or a turning point. When I use a scene as a turning point I have to create the things that happened before and after the scene so that usually ends up being more difficult to write. All of the stories that have come from these turning point scenes are still on my hard drive and are in no danger of being inflicted on an unsuspecting world. How do you develop a story? Sigerson |
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