riverllama

[riverllama]

Making A Story In Record Time!

Pretty much what the title suggests, I’m going to be showing you the step by step of how I make a story.

First I’m looking through my bookmarks because I know I have helpful things in there.

I found this blog: https://www.bryndonovan.com/category/writing-inspiration-and-resources/ and looked through it to find articles I think will be helpful.

Character motivation: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2020/08/17/50-character-goals-with-character-motivation/

Character worksheet: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2019/11/21/an-easy-character-development-worksheet-plus-one-secret-to-making-readers-love-your-character/

Names: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2019/09/30/how-to-name-a-book-character/

Flashbacks: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2019/01/10/how-to-write-flashbacks-so-they-arent-clunky/

No more perfectionism: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2018/10/29/how-to-overcome-perfectionism-and-finish-your-draft/

Fight scene prompts: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2018/10/11/50-fight-scene-writing-prompts-and-ideas/

Annoying characters: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2017/03/31/argh-25-creative-writing-prompts-to-help-you-annoy-your-characters/

Embarrassing characters: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2017/02/21/cringe-25-creative-writing-prompts-to-help-you-embarrass-your-characters/

How to show a character is in love: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2017/03/20/three-great-ways-to-show-that-your-character-is-in-love/

Next, I’m going to look through writing prompts. I never take a single one, that either feels that it gives me too many or too little restraints, so instead I use multiple and find a way to interlock them.

Young adult writing prompts: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2018/12/28/50-young-adult-plot-ideas-and-writing-prompts/

“A college student desperate for tuition money secretly works at two different full-time summer internships at once, two city blocks away from one another.”

This is absolutely hilarious and I see a lot I could do with this.

“Two boys on rival basketball teams develop romantic feelings for one another.”

There are two reasons I chose this one. The first is that it’s gay. I’m gay, and I love writing gay stuff. The second is that according to my best friend I’m very good at writing romances, even though I kinda hate the genre, so this could work.

“A teenager is pressured to shoot a buck on his first deer hunt with an older relative, but he can’t bring himself to do it.”

I think that this could be really emotional and a sign of character development, which I love.

“A teen attempts to make his whole fractious extended family get along and have a nice Christmas for once in their lives.”

This is absolutely amazing. I watched a movie that gave me these sort of vibes, it’s on Amazon Prime, it’s called Lez Bomb (highly recommend it, by the way).

“A teen copes with both a hopeless crush on his best friend’s older sister and a younger girl’s crush on him.”

I’m starting to see a way I can tie these all together, but I’ll ignore that for now.

“A girl discovers a secret passageway in one of the office buildings she cleans at night, but nobody else seems to be able to access it.”

It just wouldn’t be a me story without a little mystery, of course.

“Two boys discover treasure in a local cave.”

So, now that we’re at the end here, I think it’s a good idea to tell you my ending story. Or, well, story idea. This is nowhere near done yet. I haven’t even started. I don’t have names yet, so I’ll simply give everyone a letter of the alphabet until I’m done.

A and B have been best friends their whole lives. B has two siblings, an older brother (C) and a younger sister (D). D has a crush on A. A is an only child. A’s family is not poor, but can’t exactly afford to send him to the school he wants to go to, so he works two full time internships, two city blocks away from each other. He’s also full time in college and is on the basketball team. He can’t tell anyone he’s doing all this, because they will be mad at him for overworking himself. A and B go to the same college, but C goes to the rival one. C is on the basketball team. Along the course of the story A and C start to develop feelings for each other. At one of A’s internships he drops something and goes to pick it up under a desk. He sees a trapped door on the floor under his boss(E)’s desk. He goes to open it but E calls his name and he picks up the paper and leaves. The next day he tries to open it, but is unable. Once A and C start dating, they sneak away to go have a picnic in a cave so no one sees them and come across a trapped door similar to the one A found under E’s desk. This one can open. The not shooting a buck, and Christmas things are subplots.

Now, I know my basics, but I don’t actually know my plot. For example, where do the trapped doors lead? Do they lead to each other? If so, why? Is there something magical about the cave? Does E know about the trapped doors? So, as you can see, a lot of questions here are unanswered. To fix this I’m going to look at more writing prompts, but this time horror, or fantasy. Let’s start with horror.

Horror writing prompts: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2016/09/19/50-spooky-writing-prompts-for-horror-thriller-ghost-and-mystery-stories/

“Frightening events in a small town lead its citizens to dig up the grave of a deceased inhabitant.”

I make no promises on using this yet, but I think it could be interesting.

“The television switches to another station of its own accord and plays footage of something horrible that happened long before the technology existed to record it.”

I like this one quite a bit, and I think that it could tie well with the one above it. Maybe the town had a horrible incident that happened long ago. Everyone knows about it, but no one talks about it?

“Weekend adventurers explore a cave and can’t find their way out again. Then they encounter something terrible…”

I was actually thinking about this one all on my own, maybe the original entrance A and C took to the cave closed up, so they had to go through the trapped door and see where it leads?

“Authorities go through the cluttered apartment of a deceased man who lived alone with no known friends or relatives for decades and find something disturbing.”

Maybe the trapped doors lead to the same place and someone lived there? No, I don’t like that.

Wait, actually. Maybe E was at the horrible event that happened? He could have caused it, which would explain why he has a trapped door under his desk. He takes the victim’s remaining lifespan and adds it onto his? Like if they would only have died from natural causes when they were 76 and he killed them when they were 32, he’d get 44 more years of life? But to do that he had to eat them? All the victims are in a cave that both the trapped doors lead to. The one in the cave leads there because that is where the horrible thing happened and he needed an easy way to dispose of the bodies, and the one in his office leads there because that is where he lives? I don’t know, this is just brainstorming. Once I’m done with this I’m going to post a more accurate synopsis of what the story could be. For now I’m going to look at fantasy prompts, because those will (hopefully) be less messed up than this.

Fantasy prompts: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2017/03/06/50-fantasy-plot-ideas-and-writing-prompts/

“Miners discover stone spheres with strange markings.”

A and C can see those in the cave? Maybe they’re keys to the trapped doors?

“His magical powers don’t work when he’s drunk.”

I don’t know if I’m going to involve magic in this story yet, but if I am I’m 100% making this a thing.

“The bite of a particular animal may kill you, or it may give you new powers.”

Maybe this is how the person got them?

Okay, I think I’ve got something. This story has vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc, etc. Nobody knows about them. E is a werewolf. He made a trapped door in the cave to another one so he could hide from the full moon and not kill anyone. One night he was running late and was transforming as he went to his hiding spot. He tried to make it to the trapped door, but one of his friends was throwing a party there. He tried to push through the people, but there were a lot and it took a long time. When he finally got there he realized he dropped his key in the crowd. He tried to find it but couldn’t. His friend distracted him and soon E was a full blown werewolf. His killing extinct kicked in and he killed everyone at the party. He ripped the trapped door off its hinges and started piling the bodies into his hiding spot. When he became human again he put the door back on, but didn’t even look for the key. He didn’t want to remember what he did. There are three trapped doors, one in the cave, one under his desk, and one in his house.

I’m going to write a better description of the story I’m going with soon, but until then enjoy my brainstorming process!