how do you start a new story? how do you decide where it'll lead? i'm curious.
i like images (www.pixdaus.com), and music (www.pandora.com). i surround myself with mood-altering sensory experience, and that seeps into my head, gets me thinking. i'm not so good at plucking juicy plots from the idea tree; i tend to see a particular scene in my head, a flash of a scene, even, and go from there.
how do i decide what happens next? i pretty much listen to my characters, and try to allow them to do what they would do, consistent with their personality. if they're just standing there, waiting for the excitement to start, then i ask myself, "how can i really screw these people over?" heh.
rule #1: don't make life easy for your characters. a character overcoming trouble is a bajillion times more interesting for readers than a character leading a charmed life.
so, how do i make myself write when i really would rather watch ghosthunters? that's a hard one. sometimes i give in to the relaxing evening--hey, i deserve one, okay?--but most of the time i settle my monkey mind; i tell myself that writing is fun if i let myself sink into and chew on the story. the hardest part of writing is reentry--finding that same headspace you had last time you worked on the story, continuing the style and tone, and remembering where you wanted it to go. i like to read what's written from the start, and that gets me there.
many writers keep notes, jot down their moments of genius. i know i should, too. those notebooks never seem handy when i need them, and i have a tendency to forget everything else as soon as i focus on a specific thought. the idea fragments float away like ashes on a breeze, damn them. even if i remember enough to make a note for later reference, it never feels the same when i return to it. it's gone cold.
so, i consider myself an instinctual writer. i follow what feels right in the moment for the character. if that's a different reaction from my original idea, i try it on and see what happens. we all have so many stories to tell, and who's to say our first idea is the best one? so, don't be afraid to play. if you're nervous about changing the story direction, save it as a revised copy and go hog wild.
rule #2: allow your mind to explore all possibilities. ignore nothing, no matter how extreme, how ridiculous, how impossible. give it a try and see where it takes you. therein lies genius.
here's an awesome site chock full of inspiration, exercises, pokes in the virtual eye:
http://languageisavirus.com/
see if it does anything for you--any site featuring william burroughs' angular mug can't be bad.
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I like written prompts. Sometimes a picture will do it for me, but more consistently I get those flashes of scenes from something I read--a sentence fragment, a prompt generator, whatever.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I also tend to be an instinctual writer, doing what feels right at the moment. I tend to be a little worse at making myself write, though!