story development

Where Does Your Idea-Spawner Dwell?

“Where do you get the ideas for your stories?”

I haven’t even been at this very long, and I’ve already lost count how many times I’ve been asked that. Maybe it hasn’t been that many. Maybe I’m just blocking the memories because my answer often seems to be, “Um, well … I don’t know. Places.”

Part of the problem is that no two stories have had the same clear-cut idea-spawning process. One came from a line of lyrics that I thought I’d heard wrong. One came from experiences I saw repeating for a certain subset of my students, and I realized I could fictionalize the essence of it. Most of the others, I don’t have a solid memory of where they came from. One little germ of a thought smooshed into another, then another. A main character, a premise, a plot … they just kind of evolved. By the time I had the full “idea” in my head, I couldn’t remember how I got to that original germ in the first place.

Another thing I’ve lost count of is how many times I’ve heard other authors say they’ve gotten ideas from dreams. Tons of them saying they have to keep a notepad on the nightstand so when they wake from a dream that’ll make an awesome story, they can jot down the important points before it slips from their minds.

I have a confession. My dreams are utterly useless to me as a writer.

I can’t say they’re necessarily boring. They’re just either too ordinary or too weird to make good story fodder. A lot of my dreams involve mash-ups of my current life with older memories. I’m at school, and I’m supposed to go teach something, but I’m also a student again, and it’s supposed to be my high school, but it’s more like classrooms from the deaf school I interned at got transplanted to my junior high building. The supporting characters are a mix of people I went to school with and kids I’ve taught at various stages of my career.

Oh, and the best part is when some people are using ASL while others are speaking, and it almost never matches up with who would be doing each in real life.

(Someone’s going to waltz in and do a dream analysis on this, declaring my subconscious to be either really dull or really messed up, right?)

The good news is, it doesn’t really matter where the ideas come from, as long as they come. Maybe it’s on my mind because I’m wondering where I’ll find the next one.

Do your ideas tend to spawn in ways that are easy for you to pinpoint? Or are they a little more amorphous as they sneak up on you?

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Potential Pitfalls: Writing Blind (v2.0)

Perhaps some of you wondered why this post was labeled “v1.0” … here’s the answer.

There’s another way of interpreting “writing blind” beyond an awareness of the audience—awareness of the plot.

If you’ve been hanging around online writers’ communities, you’re probably familiar with the terms planner and pantser. It’s not so much “either-or” as it is a spectrum. On the extreme planner end you have writers who outline chapter by chapter, construct copious background notes, and have everything clearly laid out before they write the first scene. On the other end, you have writers who truly fly by the seat of their pants. They sit down with just the barest seed of an idea—maybe the main character, or a slice of a premise—and start writing.

At that extreme pantser end of things, we run the risk of writing blind. Having no idea where the plot is going, and thus writing scenes that go nowhere.

Even at that extreme, this pitfall is still only potential. If we recognize that major editing will be required after the first draft, once the story has found its shape, it can work out just fine. But there’s a key:

Somewhere along the way, we’re not writing blind anymore.

At some point, we have to figure out where we’re going. Otherwise, we’re going to end up with 200k words of episodic scenes and no end in sight. Characters may still throw curve-balls, unexpected twists may emerge, changes may be required. That’s all okay and part of the fun. But we need to get a bead on the main conflict and resolving it.

Of course, being a super-extreme planner … well, that’s another potential pitfall.

All you pantsers out there, what methods do you apply to your madness? What’s your editing process like once the first draft is done?

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Two Sides to Motivation

No, this is not a post on how to get yourself to meet your NaNoWriMo word count goals.  This isn’t about “get your cursor moving” motivation at all.

This is about motivation within the story–motivating the characters as well as the plot.  First, a little background on what prompted this post.

I was reading (and generally enjoying) a pair of books from a particular series.  The first red flag came when a side character was killed and I felt nothing.  Maybe it happened too fast, maybe it was a failure to develop an emotional connection earlier … or maybe it was because it “just kinda happened.”  Moving on, the MC executed an impressive string of “just doing things” for no clear reason other than to conveniently get herself in trouble.  That’s when I really started thinking about it and the failings of motivation.

Anyone who’s tried to write a query letter has probably explored character motivation related to central conflict.  What does the MC want and what stands in his/her way?  My exploration has taken me from that macro level to the micro level of individual scenes and character actions or decisions.  I’ve concluded that there are two types of motivation.  I’m sure someone out there has more technical names for them, but this is how it’s worked out in my mind.

Front-End Motivation
This is what triggers a character’s actions.  Why does she do this?  Why does he react that way?  It stems from preceding events as well as the character’s personality and values.  The trick here is to make sure our characters act and react in realistic and consistent ways, keeping them imperfect yet still believably human.  If a character’s going to make an obviously poor choice, the reader should be able to buy into the reason.  Show the doubts or the willful rebellion, whatever it is that drives the decision.

Back-End Motivation
This is why an event/decision/development is worth including in the story.  A few random details for flavor are fine, but anything more substantial should have a reason for happening.  It may be the resolution of an earlier mini-conflict or the catalyst for something to happen later.  In essence, it’s what keeps individual scenes connected.

Both types are necessary, and different scenes will have a different balance of front- and back-end.  I imagine few could be described as 50/50, but 5/95 (or 95/5) should be likewise rare.  What happens when the balance is weighted too far to one side–or worse, when one side of the motivation is missing?

Back-End with No Front:
This dilemma inspires the “Well, that’s convenient” reaction in readers and seems to be at the root of my instigating experience–the MC who “just does stuff.”  As authors, we know what we want to happen, so sometimes we force our characters to jump through hoops, just for the sake of making something work in the plot.

Front-End with No Back:
Scenes with this problem may come across as feeling random, tangential, or even indulgent.  I suspect it occurs more when a writer is trying to pad the word count, or perhaps when the plot isn’t yet fully formed.  The characters do things that make sense given their personalities and prior events, but it doesn’t really go anywhere.  I’d say it’s nothing to be too afraid of in a first draft if you’re a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pantser rather than a planner, but definitely something to watch out for in editing.

Neither Front Nor Back:
Sound the alarm and get thee a reality check, pronto!  Characters are reacting inconsistently and randomly, and the story is going nowhere.  At its most extreme, this isn’t a story–it’s words spewed onto a page.  Might be okay for a free-write to play with dialogue or characterization, but once you’re in story mode, these things need to be reined in … at least to a degree.


So, let your characters be human (even if they aren’t human, SF/F writers).  People rarely do anything truly random.  At the same time, be judicious in choosing which human moments to include in your story, and be mindful of why you’ve chosen them.

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YA Work and the Big Bad

One of the basic elements of storytelling is conflict.  Most sources list between four and six main conflict types.

• Man vs. Self–the identity crisis
• Man vs. Man–“duke it out” (physically or otherwise)
• Man vs. Society–the rebellion
• Man vs. God/Fate–big-time underdog
• Man vs. Nature–the disaster scenario
• Man vs. Technology–“Good morning, Dave.”

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Just for Giggles: Character Transplant Exercise

In a fit of randomness, I started thinking about my characters and how they would fit into the real world.  Maybe other writers (especially of fantasy) do this all the time.  It’s kind of fun, and has made me think about my characters in-depth, particularly the more minor characters.

I wonder how much you can tell about my book from reading this silliness cold.  Hmm …

Raina would front a rock band, drawing comparisons to Paramore’s Hayley Williams, except Raina would mouth off to the press more than she should.  There would be a rumor about the paparazzi and electrocution, which sensible people would shrug off.

Taz would make major breakthroughs in computer science and linguistic programming, specifically in the development of signing avatars.  She’d be a guest lecturer all over the world, and her company would be puzzled over why she never asked to be reimbursed for her airline tickets.

Niko would take online courses in philosophy while hanging out with Raina on tour, driving his professors to madness with his ability to beat them in any argument.  He’d turn down the opportunity to go to top medical schools and become a writer instead.

Vota would be a MythBuster.  She loves blowing stuff up, so she’d fit right in.

Genno would be a negotiator, but not in any kind of business sense.  Probably law enforcement, hostage negotiation, that kind of thing.  His co-workers would think of him as the nice guy, kind of quiet, but they’d also know not to mess with him.

Willet would be a contestant on Survivor.  He’d be the guy who tries to win by flirting with all the girls.  There would be nasty fights during and after tribal council, claiming that using his shapeshifting to impersonate other tribe members constituted cheating.

Pashti would be a student at the Art Institute of Chicago (sculpture, mostly).  By all appearances, she’d be sophisticated and avant-garde, but secretly she’d spend her Thursdays watching Survivor, rooting for Willet.  (She’d never tell him, though.)

Anyone else ever tried something like this?  Other favorite character exercises?  Feel free to post links in the comments.

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