The Writing Process - The Torture You Live For
You’ve developed your story idea into a premise with high concept. What is the next step in developing your story? Planning and development.
Ugh! That sounds like work. Well, Cats and Kittens, nothing worth doing is easy.
Writing isn’t all wine and HoHos. It requires dedication and hard work to develop your skills – know your craft to write a story that readers will enjoy so much they tell their friends. And, if done right, you’ll be rewarded with a zing of your heartstrings whenever someone tells you how much they enjoyed your story.
So, grab a pen and paper, and let’s touch on the areas you need to look at to spin that legendary yarn.
The steps listed below are not in any sequential order, though I have listed them in the order I address them. The only exception is item number one. You really need to do this step first so you know which direction to take in tackling the rest of the process.
The first thing you need to do is decide what type of story you want to write. Ask yourself this, what do you like to read? Do you drool over an eyebrow melting romance? Do you strive to solve a murder mystery before the detective? Any story idea can be vamped into a certain genre, it just depends on the type of story you want to write. Research genres on the internet and decide which way you want your story to go.
Since I am a paranormal horror writer, my next step is to develop the villain. There are several methods to developing a character. Some writers use personality tests, or they interview their characters. In Angela Ackerman’s Emotional Thesaurus, Positive Traits Thesaurus, and Negative Traits Thesaurus she discusses concepts like emotional wounds, and positive aspects. There are great tools provided for character development.
I prefer asking a certain set of questions, especially regarding my nemeses. Knowing all the powers and weaknesses of the villain help with main character and story development, and provides some guidelines for obstacles and possible weapons.
With your adversary alive and wreaking havoc, decide what type of ending you want. There are four possibilities:
Comedy –character is successful
Tragedy – character fails
Personal Triumph – character fails, but it’s a good thing. He either would’ve caused more damage in succeeding or he would’ve lost something precious.
Personal Tragedy – character achieves his goal, but it wasn’t worth it.
Knowing the ending of the story will help in developing the journey to get there. Also, you can better develop the Black Moment.
What’s the Black Moment? It is the darkest moment, the worst challenge your main character faces. It’s the point in the story where it looks as if he will fail.
The character must reach rock bottom and he should be shown at his worst. Your character faces his greatest fear, or has an epiphany about his critical flaw, or is confronted by a moment from his past that’s been haunting him.
Lead the reader to believe all hope is lost and the villain is going to win.
Look over your notes and come up with some obstacles, conflicts, and/or challenges for your character to overcome.
The general consensus circles around three big obstacles, and a few minor ones. The first big obstacle is the Inciting Incident or Triggering Event – the event that changed the main character’s normal, daily life. The other obstacles you throw at your main character should be worse than the previous challenge.
Obstacles are:
Internal/emotional
External/physical
Mental
Moral
Spiritual
Personal
Beginning. Here is where you show the normal life of your main character and introduce the Inciting Incident/Triggering Event that changes that norm. If possible, you’ll also put your plot hook here.
From this point the action will increase until the Climax and Black Moment.
Settings/Locations. Where does your story take place? Small town, IN or outer space? Is it a nightclub, a basement, or the woods? For time related settings, like 17th century London or vineyards, you’ll need to do your research in order to portray that place and time accurately enough that the reader can imagine themselves in that location. Research on-line, go to similar places and record what you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and feel. Absorb that atmosphere into your pores.
I like to get pictures and add them to my notes.
Create Characters. Develop your characters, as you did your villain. With all the information you have you should be able to make them into the type of characters you need to best play out the story.
Your main characters should not be stock or walk on characters. Those can be made up as you go along. You’ll want to develop your main characters so well that by the time you’re actually writing, there will be no doubt as to how they will react – that is, until they do something totally unexpected.
Character development applies to minor characters as well. You don't need to develop them quite as in-depth as your main characters, but...never mind. Forget that last slip of the tongue.
Do some research into Character Archetypes, which are universally recognized, standard models that define a character’s role. I suggest using different sources as there are various “sets”.
Plotting/Timeline. Map out how the events will unfold in a brief list. What is the Inciting Incident? What’s next? This is not the outline, but a quick list of the events that need to take place, in the order they need to occur. Use this as your guide when creating your outline.
Outline. It’s time to place your character(s) into the story and take them from point A to point Z.
There is much debate between outliners and pantsers as to the credibility of outlining. The pantser writer –fly by the seat of your pants- believes outlining stifles the creativity of writing. I disagree.
The outline is simply a guide that allows you to write your manuscript quickly, with your imagination running free while avoiding writing yourself into a dead end.
The one pitfall is getting too locked in to the original plan. Just keep in mind that an outline is a guide and not chiseled in stone. If you can’t seem to move past a certain scene, don’t be afraid to trash it.
This isn’t high school English with all the Roman numerals, upper-case letters, and numbers. This is your guide. No one need see it but you, so structure is not important.
Focus on content. The way it works is, for each main event- look to your plotting/timeline-imagine the scene(s) and briefly answer the following question.
What characters are in the scene?
Who is the point of view character–whose eyes is the scene viewed through?
Location/setting of the scene?
What happens (be brief)
What does the scene accomplish? Each scene should move character forward towards or farther away from accomplishing the goal/solving the problem, OR enrich the reader’s understanding of the character or the situation.
Now put it away for a day or two. Don’t look at it or think about it. If something nags at your brain, make a note in your story notebook. After a couple of days of gorging yourself on ice cream for a job well done, pull out the outline and review it.
What other scenes are needed? Fill in what’s missing
Take out any unneeded scenes.
Put everything in the best order for telling the story. Use the outline as a guide, but don’t be afraid to change it. Stay open to the unexpected.
Now bang at those keys until they sound like gun shots and write that story. Have fun and let the ink flow!
