hdwriting237-blog

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Coming up with THE Idea

Lot’s of things must happen before you sit down and stare at a blank page. First, obviously, you have to come up with your idea. Inspiration can come in many forms and it often doesn’t happen the same for everyone. Sometimes I think of a characters and create a story around them, others I come up with a story and create characters for it. Some ideas come from dreams, some ideas are just random thoughts that spark utter genius.

The common factor? Inspiration comes to you. It isn’t often, in my experience, that you can force a good idea. Often, part of the idea comes and you nurture it into something that eventually, hopefully, grows into a novel.

“So what?” You say, “I’m meant to just sit around and wait for an idea to come to me?”

The answer is no, not quite. There are ways you can unveil your ideas before they surprise attack you. But you don’t just want to unveil any old idea, you want to find the idea.

I spent years writing stories that I shouldn’t have been. Meaning, I was writing things that weren’t me. A lot of authors tell you to write what you read. That makes perfect sense, however, what happens if you read a lot of genres? How do you know what genre you should write?

Here is what I did and I recommend this exercise not only if you are struggling to come up with a story but if you are stuck anywhere in a story.

Step 1: write down all your favourite books, movies, tv shows, etc.

Even though movies and tv shows are fairly different to books, it isn’t a bad idea to look at them when considering plot and genre.  When thinking of this list, choose only the ones that resonate with you. That you absolutely love and are perhaps passionate about. Obviously, these texts hold ideas that you like and if you like something it is a lot easier to write it.

Step 2: write down the genres of each book, movie, etc.

Obviously you want to know what genres you love. If you are able to also note down the subgenres that helps too because sometimes you can read a book or watch a movie but it isn’t the overarching genre you love it’s the subgenres. Maybe you absolutely loved the love story in that action movie but all the guns and bullets didn’t matter to you that much.

Step 3: Write down what exactly it is about the texts you like.

This can get a bit tricky because it cane be hard to think about. What about your movie do you like? Is it the dark themes? The humour? Perhaps it was that amazing plot twist that had you screaming into a pillow. Did you enjoy the characters in that book? Or perhaps it was the setting that did it for you. Try in this area to avoid structural likes and dislikes. Right now we’re not too worried about whether or not the writing styles was good or it had amazing dialogue. That will come later. Right now we just need a plot.

Step 4: Write down all your favourite characters.

You can’t have a story without characters. A fantastic plot is nothing if it doesn’t have fantastic characters to go with it and visa versa. Write down all your favourite characters and beside that write down what exactly it is that you love. If you are taking characters from movies or tv shows don’t write down that they are attractive because though it is something you can include in your story it won’t have the same affect in a book as it does a movie. Look at things like, do they have a dark past? Are they good or bad? Are they a misunderstood villain or perhaps an anti-hero? Are they smart or more into using their fists, etc. You want personality traits and backstory rather then physical traits, however you can still use those later on.

Step 5: Look at what you have.

If you’re finding a common theme between all your favourite texts then it might be because that is what you love reading/watching and might be what you love to write. Look at the stories you are already trying to write, do they include all these factors? At least some? You don’t have to write a story that includes everything you just wrote. You do that and you might not create the amazing story you want. If you find you have a mixture of genres then perhaps you should try a story that is a combination of them. Create something new and exciting. Don’t be afraid to be unique, not everything has been thought of yet even if you think it has.

This exercise does not guarantee you an amazing story. For me, it helped my brain to flow, helped me get over writer’s block and come up with my current WIP. Give it a go and tell me how it went in the comments below.

[hdwriting237-blog]

Planning the plan

Planning, some dread it, some love it and some don’t even do it. Most writers have heard of pansters and planners. If you haven’t, pansters are writers who don’t plan and fly by the seat of their pants. They come up with the general idea, the basics and then let the story take hold and shape itself. If that is you this post may not be overly helpful to you. If you think you’re a panster but it doesn’t quite seem to be working perhaps you might find something here that will change your mind.

I am a planner, there is not question about it. I write down everything I can about my characters, outline my plot almost scene by scene and know as much as I can before I actually start writing. In my early years I tried to be a panster and actually completed a piece of work with the method (this was when I was 13 and the piece of work was only 20 thousand words). However, when I tried to write full big novels the method did not work for me. So I started planning and discovered something very quickly.

There is more then one way to plan a story.

As far as I know these methods don’t have actual names so I have given them rather unimaginative ones for the use of this blog. You are welcome to use them as well.

The bare bone method

This is the first method I ever tried. As it states this method isn’t highly in depth and is border lining pansting. Essentially, you write down the basics of your characters, only what you need to know and what the readers will know. For your outline you write the beginning and the end and anything specific you want to happen in the middle and ta-da, you’re done. This method, like pansting, allows your story to shape itself as you write it. Some people prefer this method because characters and plots sometimes go their own way anyway, whether or not you plan them out (for new time writers, if you haven’t experienced this already prepare yourselves. Not all characters behave). This method is good for people who don’t want to be a panster but don’t want to spend hours figuring out every little detail of your story (and for those rare writers who aren’t perfectionists).

The write everything down method

This is method is a simple as it sounds. At first I used word documents or folders of paper and wrote everything about my story out. I wrote the outline in pages of paragraphs and my characters in much the same way. This method is very wordy and there are a few ways it can be done. Some authors have actual methods to this. You start with, say, a single line about your story that you slowly expand. This helps you to be able to come up with concise and catchy blurbs but to be honest I never quite got the hang of it. Eventually I started doing this in note books, colour coding pages for specific characters, scenes, outlines, etc. This method is a very good method and worked for me for a while, however, for those visual learners out there it can be a bit overwhelming. For specifics on this method go to these links:

https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

https://www.nownovel.com/blog/understanding-snowflake-method/

Or search “The Snowflake method”

The storyboard method

My favourite method of all time. I only recently discovered it but it has worked fantastically for me. This method is a very visual method and like everything else I have talked about there are a couple ways this can be done. You can use almost anything for this. A pin board, a white board, paper, cardboard, your wall, anything you want/can/are allowed to use. Originally, because of my lack of resources I used six pieces of paper, lots of sticky tap and lots of sticky notes.

It doesn’t look very sophisticated but it worked. Each sticky note is a scene or a note on things that need to happen in this area. It goes left to right, the top row then the bottom row but you can do it however you like. I recommend doing it this way before doing it how I am about to show you because already knowing what was going to happen made it so much easier to find the pictures for it.

 I redid my storyboard like the picture above because I hadn’t worked on it in a couple of weeks and needed to renew my motivation for the story. Not only did I motivate myself I expanded my story in ways I hadn’t thought of before, noticed plot holes and found more clarity as I turned words into pictures. It allowed me to make it both humorous and dark (the mood I want for my story) and made it a pretty edition to my wall.  Yours however doesn’t have to be pretty or neat. It can be as messy as you like or as organised as you like as long as it makes sense to you and you alone.

Character interviews

I don’t know if I really should be including this in here since this is meant to be about planning your whole story but I think character interviews is worth looking at. You can easy enough get a profile sheet off the internet and answer questions about your characters but imagine temporarily stepping into your characters shoes and answering the questions as if they themselves were there. It is a fantastic way of not only getting got know your characters but learning what your characters sound like, act like, etc. You can make up your own questions, use a profile sheet or even get an outside person to ask the questions whether it be a family member a friend or someone from your writing community. Whoever or whatever you choose I recommend you give it a go and see if it works for you.

Because I am not an all-knowing God I have not listed or even mentioned every type of planning method there is in the world. These methods are methods I have used and have personal experience with. If you know other methods come tell us your story and share you experiences, I would love to hear them.