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From: Ray Whiting <ray1031@toast.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.d
Subject: Re: {ASSD} story progression plot question
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:22:25 -0400
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"celia batau" <celia.batau@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:gAsGg.7431$Mz3.831@fed1read07...
> hi everyone!
>
> we have a question for anyone who posts their stories in parts before
> they've finished the story. :)
>
> when you post the chapters, do you know how the story will end? do you
> have a vague idea?
>
> and how do you pace the plot? do you first have a direction, or do you
> just let things flow any way they want?
>
> we're working on a new story, and we have a general idea of what we want,
> but the details of getting from place to place are really vague. we're out
> of our depth (we almost never write anything this length). and we're
> almost to the point of asking for suggestions. but the idea of a literary
> ultrasound is till a little offputting. :)
>
> so we're wondering how everyone else does it. we'd really really apreciate
> anything anyone could share to help. :)
>
Hello my friends,
Honestly, I was not planning to respond to this question - for two reasons:
First, Like Sky I don't really consider myself a writer .... I have said in
this forum before that I am simply a story-teller and a scribbler.
Secondly, I have no formal training or real background in either writing
or really in English and the rules there-of. So I am not often comfortable
in making any really significant comment.
Besides, I hardly write with any particular pre-formatting involved. I do
not outline, nor pre-plot, nor even do much in of any preparation at all.
I "do" have a couple of uncompleted stories out there - a couple of what
were really my first writing attempts .... Crowded House and Maki.
Both of which, though they have lain dormant for some few years, I am
still receiving requests for their continuation. Quite honestly - they are
both still mostly complete in my head .... at least in that I have always
known basically where they are/were headed and there are/were a
few specific things that would happen in getting them there.
Beyond that, once the typing starts and the muse is kicking me in
the butt, my stories tend to write themselves.
I do take a few advantages or tricks into the effort with me though.
First, in large part, I base things in familiar territory. Maki, for
example, takes place in a converted home turned apartments. I
really lived there for about six months ... on the third floor, in the
apartment described. I did own and drive a Dodge Colt while
living there. The apartment manager did live in the first apartment
on the ground floor. beyond that, the characters and their actions
are the figment of my imagination.
In Crowded House, and Blind Neighbor, the action takes place
in the same house .... another place I have lived. I simply did
a slight rearrangement of the rooms in my head.
My stories begin, always, when a thought or mental picture will
build itself in my head .... which always seems to happen. (One
reason why I once said I have an immense hopper. I get an idea
or have a thought and I add a folder with a name and a few
descriptive lines. - Normally, what is there will immediately
bring the entire image back into my head.)
Perfect example: Last summer, while driving my service truck
between jobs, I was travelling down a dirt road behind a
trailer park. Behind one of the trailers two women in bikinis
were sunbathing. I was suitably distracted for a moment and
drove over something in the road that didn't belong there. It
cut a truck tire and I had a very loud blowout. As I stopped,
I noticed that both women sat up at the sudden bang and the
unlatched top of one landed in her lap. Her rather generous
natural endowments were wriggling free as a result and waggled
back and forth as if to say "Hey sailor!" I had an injured ankle
at the time and limped around the truck as I swapped the blown
tire for the spare .... the women went inside, huffy-like and I
actually heard one of them refer to me as a bastard. Regardless,
as I changed the tire I had a complete story build itself in my
head about what might happen if they had come out and
offered to help the poor injured man with his tire ... <g>
One of the last things I posted, was Basement Blessings, was
based in a home I grew up in and the surrounding area. The
story itself was written around parameters someone else
specified - in that it was written for the 2004 Secret Santa
thing. - Originally, Basement Blessings was intended as a
two chapter thing involving only the two main characters.
Then I thought it unlikely that such a thing occur without
the other sisters knowing ... then I thought it had to have
an epilogue.
Free house was loosely based around this area - in that there
are a couple of "church owned" homes that are rented low
cost to it in trouble member families, a documentary I saw
at the time about domestic relocation for battered wives, and
finally, around a gas station I worked in when I was twelve
years old. Yep, there really was a fenced side yard with a
dozen cars in it that the owner never got around to fixing up,
like he wanted to.
So, although I don't use pre-plotting and outlines, I do know
where each story is meant to end up, and it's basic route in
getting there, when I start typing. The "scene pictures" are
locked in my head until they are put on paper.
Oh - final comment about Maki and Crowded House, for
any who are interested .... Maki has not been continued
because it is going to have a very unsatisfactory conclusion
for most people and I haven't been able to "get it there"
to my satisfaction .... Crowded House has not been continued
because I personally don't like where it "wants" to go.
Hope this - in any manner - helps a little.
Ray