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How do you decide which ideas are worth turning into stories? How does one refine one's nose for a good story? Do you have a barometer for testing out story ideas? Posts: 2185 | Registered: Aug 2007
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My ideas usually start with a character. Then I try to figure out what's up with this character - who is s/he, what's going on in his/her life, and why? That usually is enough to get me started. If I get stuck, I just save my notes on that character - maybe he'll be a sidekick or a minor character in something rather than the hero. But an interesting character is my starting point.
Posts: 415 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I generally play with the idea and try to layer onto it. Sometimes though it's a character that gets me started. For the short I'm working on it started as a LH flash off a trigger. So, the short (and unhelpful) answer is I get the ideas from everywhere. When they keep me from sleeping, I know it's time to write.
Posts: 1210 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Sometimes I'll start with a character, like Lynda and kings_falcon said. Create the character's history, appearance, and all that, then build a world around him/her/it.
Other times, though, the characters are actually last in my process. This happens when I come up with an entire fictional world, spending several months developing and detailing that world, its nations and political state, religious factors, and other things like that. By the time I make characters to move about in this world, then world itself is pretty well defined (though not perfect by any means). These characters are generally minor, in the sense that they aren't kings or generals, and that they aren't already famous/infamous, nor are they involved in any major events (at the beginning of the story, that is - an entire story about a character who doesn't do anything big in his/her/its life would be boring, IMO - though the definition of 'big' here is rather fluid).
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I don't know. I wish I did. If someone could clarify that question, they'd be doing us all a favor.
Posts: 1588 | Registered: Jul 2007
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I post over 365 ideas a year on other bulletin boards.
when one of my favorite boards crashed last year, I reloaded the missing ideas to it. I would cut and paste them from one board to another. I would find the begining of the post and start a highlighting, then locate the end of that post and, holding the shift key down, click on the end, highlighting the entire idea, and then copy and paste it to the other board.
For about two ideas a month, I would see something that caught my attention and have to read the entire post. Those would be the ideas I would develop into a full story if I had the time and initiative to write them.
For me, I know it is a good story when it stands above the others I have posted.
For the stuff I actually write, the ones that have some excitement in developing it are usually the best. Of course, I write by having a scene and situation, write up to it, then do the scene or situation, then write out to a conclusion. The couple novels I wrote first drafts for, I would have a series of scenes and situations to work for. Of course, few here write that way.
My suggestion, though, has always been to take your idea and write ABOUT it, tell what the story is about. Do not bother actually writing it, but just tell it. Do this with all those wayward ideas you get. It takes me about an hour a night to write them and they are about two to three pages each, whether they are telling about a novel, or a whole short story. When you want to write something new, read over your ideas and see which ones stands well above the others.
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Yeah, I don't have a problem generating ideas, or even developing ideas into stories (well, I do, but that's a different thread). Rather, I have trouble sorting through them. I look over them periodically, and yes, some generate excitement. But just because they generate excitement to me doesn't mean it's going to be exciting to anyone else, right? Case in point--right now, I'm working on a story with an MC that I find absolutely intriguing. i don't know that my story will ever see the light of day--on some level I recognize it's not going to sell. Too slow, ponderous. True, maybe I can use the character and put him in another situation, but the story, as it is, is probably not going to make it.
I was curious if others have a sorting process. Rstegman, it seems like you do. I guess I just don't know what the criteria are, or how one should go about assessing.
[This message has been edited by annepin (edited December 21, 2007).]
This is the reason you are supposed to read loads of books. You read a lot of books to find out what you like to read, and what is getting published (If you happen to note who is publishing what you love to read, you have a step ahead).
YOu then write the kind of stories you enjoyed reading.
This goes for science fiction magazines or any other publicatuions.
AS for me, I had no concept of writing stories during my heaviest reading period and only noticed authors after I kept seeing their names crossing in front of me many a time. Many of those publishers are out of business now.
After all that reading, If you write for yourself, and choose story ideas that excite you, you then may already have a publisher in line. ONe then just needs to get the writing to a level that publishers might accept.
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For me, I stockpile ideas (both original and borrowed) and think of different ways to combine them.
Actually, on the series I'm working on, the trigger was all of the environments the characters go through. I thought of traditional areas (volcanoes, glaciers, deserts, etc) and put twists on them. In a way, each area has its own story within the series' plot.
As for deciding which ideas are worth turning into stories...I honestly think that if you like the idea, you should incorporate it into your story. Chances are if you like it, many others will like it.
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I come up with kernel ideas, sometimes that's enough. Usually they sit in my idea file until I find something that makes it even more interesting and has a satisfying conclusion, then I will begin to write it.
Often I will write an intro, to find the right voice for the piece, if that is a struggle and I am unhappy with it, I usually don't proceed. When (if) I establish the starting point and voice, then I go for it.
I WRITE ALL STORIES THAT MEET THOSE CRITERIA--even if they are stories where the subject matter may not be to my taste.
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I come up with something---usually a scene, sometimes an idea, only rarely a character---then fill back and forth until I have enough for a beginning and end. Then I write some notes and file them. If the story persists in my mind, I take out the notes and add to them.
Months if not years pass. If it's still on my mind, and I'm not writing anything much else, or I'm wanting a change, I'll start writing it.
Sometimes it happens rather abruptly. Last year, I was working on a story---one of those lurid things that preoccupies my mind when I'm trying to sleep. I'd finished that, then fiddled with it. Something in it shifted in my mind...and I was off on the beginning of a novel. More than two thousand words the first day, and over a hundred thousand by the end of the first year at it...all from a cold start. (I've got no end yet, though.)
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