Setting the stage

[The Master™]

Okay, here's the thing...

Last night, for absolutely no reason, I suddenly felt the urge to start writing something - could have been a recipe or a list of things - but it turned out I wanted to write a short story... I have some characters names, town names and region names... I even have the baddies sorted out, along with some sort of artifact(s)... And a sort of idea of the principal characters... But I'll be blowed if I can work out how to decide on the plot...

All those writers out there, how the hell do you get a skeleton of a plot sorted out??? Once I have the basic plot, I can then flesh it out...

Any assistance or help would be appreciated, before I suddenly do an about face and realise it is all a bad idea and put my pad away...

[Stargazer1976]

Sorry, I really don't know how to help. For me I come up with a basic idea for a stoy out of the blue and if I think the topic I have in mind has potential I then take that idea and toss it around in my head for quite som time before everythin starts o take shape.

The first things I actually write are the things you mentioned above. I write down character names and the basic role they will play and as I come up with further ideas I jot them down as well.

I just read how Ray Bradbury said he started out was to write down things like

The Stairs
The Crowd
The Tree's
The Knife

He made a long list of things just like the above mentioned ones. He said he used that list for his whole career with occasional additions to the list. It was meant as a starting point. You already have that, but it may take some time to come up with a good picture in your head as to where you want to go with it or how to get there.

For now, at least write down the things you have decided on and keep thinking it through. Slowly something will come. Even then your original atempt at writing the story may develope into something completely different before you finish, but no matter what don't get discouraged enough to quit on it altogether.

[aurelio]

Master, starting a story without a basic plot is... well... unusual, but I would suggest that if you have some specific actions, events, or interactions between characters - moments in the story - in your head, write those on index cards as individual ideas. When you have a bunch of those written up, you can lay them out, shift them around, and see if something springs forth to suggest a plot.

Actually, approaching it this way is not too weird, come to think of it. I find the characters always take over my stories, and the plot too, at a certain point and they really tell it to me, so if you have characters in mind, you're already on your way.

Best of luck!

[Mark Robson]

I begin at the beginning - wherever a suitable beginning point seems to be. Then I decide how I want the story to end. I also set a word target. Is this going to be a short story, or a book? Once you have the word target, then you can bullet point events that must happen in order for you to get from your start point to your end point. I like the idea of cards, but I've never done it that way myself. Once I have a list of events, I then allocate these events to chapters and give each chapter a word target. Once you have enough events/chapters packed between the start point and the end point that your chapter word targets add up to your total word target, you're ready to begin!


If it helps, each of my skeletons for my novels will fit on one side of A4.

[I, Brian]

I often have the end in mind long before the beginning.

But a big part of writing is feeling "inspired" to write a scene. These can come in many forms - from seeing scenes and events played in your mind, or else the words coming automatically, almost unconsciously, as you write.

Ultimately, some part of the actual structuring process has to be worked on very consciously - but everyone has their own methods. It's up to you to find out what works for you. Happy finding out.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Since the thing about short stories is that they are not only short but tightly plotted and (usually) idea driven, it seems strange to think of beginning one without a pretty clear concept of what the plot is going to be. With novels, on the other hand, you can start out with some interesting characters and an interesting situation or two, and ramble around until you sort of stumble into a plot (after which you can prune or expand as necessary). Are you sure you're not trying to write a novel, Master?

(I should perhaps mention that for most of the writers I know ideas/plots are relatively easy. They can generate them by the dozens, by the hundreds. Its the fleshing out part that takes up so much time and creative energy.)

[aurelio]

Kelpie raises a good point, Master. If what you want to do is pretty complex, perhaps it is best served as a novel. You could always test it out though, by doing a moment of the larger story as a short story. This is a fairly common practice, and a way in to your bigger story without feeling overwhelmed by it.

[The Master™]

i don't want it to be complex, just simple...

i tried writing a short story a couple of years ago, because i just started writing... but i had no idea of where it was going, other than off at tangents... i ended up tied up in knots and burnt the lot... now, i wanna try and create some structure from the off..

[Teresa Edgerton]

A short story is not necessarily the place for a beginning writer to start. Some writers seem to be natural short story writers and others natural born novelists. If you tend to go off on tangents, you may be the latter. Whichever you decide, you should begin with what is easiest and most comfortable for you, and that may not be short fiction, because shorter does not necessarily equal easier. Think of it as sort of like sculpture -- making a full size replica of the Statue of Liberty may take longer and involve more purely mechanical labor, but doing the thing in minature takes no less skill or technique, and may actually require a whole lot more. It's the same with novels and short fiction. The novel may take a year to write and the short story a week, but the work you do during that week may take a good deal more skill and discipline than would be required of you during any one week of the novel writing process.

On the other hand, there are writers who seem to be just about equally comfortable with short and long forms, and they tend to allow the story itself to determine its own length. Of course for that to happen you really do need to be pretty clear about the plot.

[polymorphikos]

I generally just sit-down witht he vague idea wobbling in my head, and start writing the story in dot form, randomly deciding what the next part will be and going back to work-out inconsistencies later. So I go through the whole stumbling, crash and burn phase of the story without all the difficulty of writing and trying to knit it together. Then I just sit down with a vague idea of how the plot runs in my head and write.

Often, though, I don't even bother with that. I just sit down and start writing an interesting scene I just thought of and make-up the story as I go along. Usually the only plot I have when writing a short story is the beginning, the end, and who is who, and I wing it, steering it generally where I want to go.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Obviously, there are a lot of different ways to write a short story, but maybe only a limited number of ways to write a really excellent one. When I compare my own (less than brilliant) efforts at short fiction to short stories I have particularly admired, either published or unpublished (after years and years in writers groups I've seen plenty of both), it is very clear that the best ones have much more focus than mine, are more tightly plotted than mine, and that the author really seems (whatever the truth may actually be) to know exactly what he or she wants to write about and how to do so most effectively. Every scene, every word, every bit of dialogue serves the plot or the mood or the effect that the story is all about, rather than the story being just a way to string some interesting scenes together.

I would like to learn to write better short fiction, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be a matter of retraining my thought processes at the plot level, rather than anything I can write my way into. Whereas I know from experience that one can write one's way into the plot of a novel.