StoryMash Creative Storytelling Forum

Actually, I just want to listen to you talk about plot. How do you come by plots? How do you go about thinking them up? At what point in your writing do you start to think about plot - before you ever touch pen to page, or a few pages in?

The reason I ask is curiosity and to learn more about how various people write, but also because I have a bunch of neat characters and concepts I want to use, and since I am a complete dunce with plot, nowhere to put them. =(

So I want to know how other people do it!

-Jinx

Hi Jinx!

Generally speaking, I won't touch pen to paper without at least a rough idea of a plot. I might change my mind a hundred times while I write, but characters, setting, and everything else I won't even bother thinking about unless I already know where I want things to go. When I've tried to form characters on their own in the past and then fit them into stories, I find that it can be easy to get too attached to all the little details you create for them-- you try and fit everything in when in reality it just makes the character seem superimposed onto a story and all the detail is obtuse and awkward for the reader.

All of that said, there's nothing wrong with starting with a character and building a story-- just be aware of extra details that aren't necessary -- anything that doesn't add to the plot be prepared to prune out.

Don't be frustrated! Honestly, the best advice I can give you is go out in public somewhere, take a notebook and leave any other distractions at home. No ipod or anything like that. Find a comfortable place to sit where you can sort of watch and eavesdrop on the people around you. A subway station, a mall, a park-- any place like that. Give yourself half an hour and you'll have heard hundreds of little random snippets of conversation or seen tiny little scenes unfold in front of you. Something you see is bound to get your imagination fired up--you'll find yourself overhearing part of a conversation and wondering "What's THAT about?" and you'll start trying to fill in the gaps with what you think is happening between the two people. As your imagination starts filling in the gaps, write it down! You might like what you think up right then and there, but it might even snowball into a totally different story completely later on. But it's a great way to start. I can't tell you how many things I've written after overhearing odd conversations on the subway. People on cell phones are great too -- you only have half a conversation to work with and making up the other half can be a lot of fun! Just a couple ideas for you. Great topic by the way -- I'm really interested to see what other people have to say. Good luck Jinx!

For me, it depends greatly on what comes first, character or setting or story idea.

Now, no laughing - If I come up with a great character but no plot, I play act as that character. I create dialogue with other imaginary characters, put myself into different situations, etc. What I'm looking for when I do this is conflict. If I can give my characters some sort of dire situation, some conflict, then I have a plot, or at least the seeds of one. (I also jot down every great dialogue and action sequence I have with myself for future reference.)

And if I come up with a great story but no characters, I do the same thing only putting me into the situation and seeing what kind of character I would need to be to overcome it.

A lot of times, the conflict comes to me before everything else, plot or characters or settings. This is fun because everything seems to just flow from that conflict and how to resolve it, including other, deeper, conflicts.

A note on conflict - there are several kinds and there can be many in one story. Character vs character, character vs situation, character vs self, etc.

My writing is usually scene based. I'll see something in a movie, on television, or in a bizarre dream, or hear it on the radio or in a conversation, and my mind will go, hey, that's kind of interesting. I like that. I want to write a scene about that. So then my mind takes off like a rocket, forming a single scene. No developed characters, usually not even a solid setting, just one single scene.

Then I wonder how the characters would have gotten to that scene. So I work backwards, setting up all the necessary elements that would naturally lead into said scene. The characters and setting develop through this process - they take on a life of their own, really.

Usually what happens first, though, is that I get all excited by the one scene (always an action scene. It's just how it is) that I want another action scene with the same people. So I come up with another action scene. Then another. I wind up with three or four good action scenes which I continuously rework in my mind while I'm in the process of connecting the dots - beginning a story that will lead to the first action scene, then manipulating the situation to work my way from the first action scene to the next, and so on until I get to the last action scene I created. By then I have a better idea of who the characters are, where they are, and what's going on, so I come up with more action scenes and begin weaving my way across the plotline to those.

It's clunky, I admit, and I wind up revising tons by the time I finish because I've written by the seat of my pants, but it's an enjoyable process. It's rare that I'll know the exact climax or ending of a story when I start writing it - either that, or I'll know the climax and ending in terrific detail, but have no clue how I'll go about the middle of the story.

And then other times I'll type a single sentence on the keyboard and see where my fingers take me from there. Then inspirations from the above mentioned sources will supplement and propel the concept onward.

I'm not real structured at all. I don't start with any set idea, I just start writting. Usually, I start with a story line. Like I wonder, hmmm...I wonder what would happen if a super human teenage chic fights evil at the amll. Then BAM, everything happens from there. (btw, I'd never write about that, just an example, lol)My characters, plot, depth, scene and setting pours out after I ask myself the most important question, "What if?"

DKK!!!! That's exactly how I do it too! I'll see something that catches my eye, or hear a conversation, or a story, or even in a book, and I'll say, well, what if this happened instead? Or, what if _____ was there too? Or, what if it happened to me, what would I do?

Of course, everything starts out that way for me, but then with my mental issues it gets a bit distorted and twisted and ends up somewhere completely different.
That's so cool that two people with two totally different writing styles began on the same path!!!

That's kinda freaky RG. LOL

If you've read any of my stories,then you know that you should be glad to have walked off in the opposite direction, LOL.

I have and I like your work!

Thank you! A little off the wall, at times, huh?

I do not think about the plot intentionally, allowing the characters and the world decide what happens next.
For example, in my only loaded story (a chapter of it), a character gets a folder with some unknown iformation inside. And at this time neither a character, nor me know what's inside and why he was given it. I can only guess...