Writing help!

Smithy2306

Hi,

I am trying to make an effort to become a fiction writer and I have loads of small ideas, character ideas, etc. floating around my head and on paper. I just can't seem to fit any of them into a cohesive story. If there are any people out there who write stories, even short stories, whats your strategy to get it rolling. Do you start with characters, the end of the story, the middle? You know what I mean. My strategy seems to be a lot of ideas but they become a jigsaw and I can roll them into one another.

Thanks

Das Kitty

Well, I wouldn't try to force ideas together myself. I usually have that kernel of an idea and let the story grow out of it.

Brainstorming can be good and even at a push you could follow a path through Wiki and see what grabs you.

There's no harm in having tiny little pieces of writing either, they have their own merits.

Smithy2306

Das Kitty wrote: »

you could follow a path through Wiki and see what grabs you.

Thanks for the reply but what do you mean by this? Cheers.

Das Kitty

Search for something that might be interesting (or something random) then read the article and if something catches your eye click on it to the next article, read that and do the same again.

It's kinda like brainstorming with internet help!

Smithy2306

Thanks ill try that!

pickarooney

The story is the hard bit. Sometimes if you create a character well enough a plausible and interesting story will evolve naturally from there, but usually it won't. Most stories are variations of a handful of different themes and there's not much point trying to get away from that. You could start by taking an existing story and reworking it with your characters, let the characters themselves be the flesh and hair on the old bones.

Antilles

I keep a notebook of ideas and every so often go through it and turn overlaps between them into stories.

Das Kitty

Antilles wrote: »

I keep a notebook of ideas and every so often go through it and turn overlaps between them into stories.

I have one of those. I read through it last week and I had written: Granuaile Dreadnought on a line. I have no recollection of what I meant by that.

:pac:

PurpleBee

If you're able to come up with characters then why not experiment on them... put them in awkward situations and the story might happen.

A Painful Case by Joyce strikes me as a story composed like that. As though he had an idea for a character, an old man withdrawn from the world with little interest in the world, who meets a married woman and is drawn to her... you could come up with a number of great stories from that little start.

EileenG

Try whiteboarding. Get a big whiteboard (or if you're cheap, a big paper tablecloth from a restaurant) and write on it all the vague ideas you have floating around in your head, all the characters, all the "What if?", all the settings, all the scenes, lines of dialogue, whatever you've got.

Then see if you can link any of them together into a story.

Antilles

EileenG wrote: »

Try whiteboarding. Get a big whiteboard (or if you're cheap, a big paper tablecloth from a restaurant) and write on it all the vague ideas you have floating around in your head, all the characters, all the "What if?", all the settings, all the scenes, lines of dialogue, whatever you've got.

Then see if you can link any of them together into a story.

I also like to go to the history.com's "Today in History" page and do "what if's" for each entry.

Coffeeapple

I usually start off with some characters interacting, and play around with what they say and how they react to their environment until something interesting pops up. Often an interesting endpoint will come to mind and I'll try to reach that endpoint in the most interesting way possible. But that's just my method.

Everyone has different methods, so try a few of the suggestions that people have posted in this thread and see which one feels most natural to you.