This is the meat of the tale; from this, we can get characters and we can add conflict.
I touched on this briefly in the Brainstorming section. I came up with:
teen gets bit
teen is in a wheelchair
teen is a kiwi from New Zealand
solo mother
murdered husband
move to Alaska on sisters’ advice
Now naturally this list is not in order and needs to be fixed, but not yet. Remember we are still writing on paper. Having a list is lovely, but it is just a list nothing more.
I know you are rearing to write, so go ahead if you want, especially if it is Nanowrimo month. Don't let me hold you back. Brainstorming is great for getting us useful ideas and more often than not, as a pantser (discovery writer), that is enough to get us excited and off we go. We have a main character. That's enough.
But not for me, and not for this book. This is a step-by-step guide.
Back to the list.
Each point above is bland and has no power, no life and it is our job as a writer to breathe life into the above six points. How do we do that? By knowing more.
See the image below. These are just three ideas. They look like brainstorming but they're not. Not really. The idea behind the expansion is to know more about the reasons for the above points.
The first image is a list under a list (lol). Let's call it a bullet-point list. This is useful but kind of reminds me of school English Composition at school and that bored the crap out of me. I have used bullet-point lists many times, but not usually with writing. Writing is fun.
English Composition was not. Creative writing was a blast--but I've gone off track. Easy to do that, isn't it. The typing, the free thoughts pop into your head and you end up writing them down. It is the same with discovery writing -- an idea pops into your head and you go with it. And that's the way I write. Free form -- until now.
The above paragraph shows how easy it is to get side tracked. In writing and in life.
The second image reminds me of brainstorming in the traditional sense. We chose three arms in this image, you can use as many as you need. In the bullet list above are four points. In the image there are only three arms. I don't think I need four. (See image)
I added his age when he lost his legs. I gave a bit background into the asshole he was. Leather jacket, fights. Showing off, being cool. Getting laid. Second arm, shows drinking, pill popping, theft, a trip to make-out zone, Cliff Point View (a real place in NZL. I used to go there with lady-friends. I'm not saying this teen is based on me way back in the day but...ahem--ahem). The third point is the drive. The accident. He drops a cigarette and loses control of the car. Slams through a centerline barrier and into the path of a truck. The impact snaps his spine, crushes one leg and breaks several ribs. Lucky for him, he was wasted as fuck and felt nothing.
The following is an article I wrote for a magazine way, way back in 2004. It was published in Sinisteria, and later republished in another publication. Both magazines closed their doors a few years later. (Never did get paid.)
It all starts with an idea:
It all starts with an idea and they come at any time of any day and you can’t control it. You have no say in the matter, really. For me, ideas just pop into my head, as if my muse was chewing her pencil and a crack appeared in the fabric of space and time. From that crack, a slice of thought slipped out and my muse caught it.
A lot of people believe ideas are the product of the universe and some people (Dean Koontz?) can just grab them when they need. But adhering to this belief, one must assume thousands of other people also received the very same thought. Writers would plot around it; poets would create beauty from it; hundreds would do nothing with it. This is called the initial idea and it is the start of whatever you want to make of it.
My initial idea is to write a series of articles based on writing / learning the art of screenwriting. It is an area that interests me and has done for years. Only now do I have the opportunity to attempt it.
Screenwriters make 200,000 smackaroonies a year according to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. A movie from a “known” scriptwriter can command anything from one million all the way up to four million. The six major film studios must pay a minimum of $106,000 for an original screenplay (according to the recently expired contract).
The above was discovered once I started studying screenwriting. Naturally to get the above movie sale, a writer is in a never-ending contest with a zillion other writers. And once you get the sale (if you are that lucky or your stars were in alignment with Mercury and interstellar solar particles), one can expect at least a dozen rewrites. Not all rewrites are done by you. But for 106 grand, I’d do it.
Note: If you are really serious about screenwriting, get a copy of Final Draft. Yes, it will cost you a few dollars (UPDATE: quite a few dollars) and there is a reason for that: it is bloody good and does all the formatting for you. It has become the industry standard and even Stallone wrote his latest Rocky flick using this software. Find some way to get the money for it: beg on the street; busk; strike a pose; make a sign that reads: Starving Writer Needs Software; just don’t ask your folks, okay. That’s the easy way. If you earn it, then buy it, you’ll use it and master it. The software will have more value added to it instantly: Your sweat, blood and tears as you laid tar on the roads and dug trenches for pipes, would have all been worth it.
The initial idea comes from many places. Some places are: A crack in the universe / hearing part of a conversation on the street, bus, train etc / experiencing life, café / workplace / a book, movie, TV show / stuck in traffic / newspaper or magazine headline or article / childhood memory / the moment before sleep claims you / dreams / a blank page (works for most people) / typing random words for a full thirty seconds and then reading what you wrote (this is an amazing technique; sometimes when you rearrange the words you have a complete sentence) / reading this article. (Side note: having written about the words on the page I had an image in my head of words swirling on the page and a middle age guy watching them and hearing words. They are telling him to “kill” — initial idea.)
Now we have the idea. Great! That was the easy part. What do you mean, the idea was hard? I look at a coffee cup and I wonder who made it. Where did they stand in the production line? Are they/he/she young or old or somewhere in-between? There are a lot of chemicals in a place like that. What if…?
There are a million, trillion, gazillion ideas out there, open your mind to them and you’ll never run dry. Now develop it, nurture it and help it grow.
How does it start?
What happens next?
Who is she / he / them?
Next?
What are they doing?
Why?
Next?
Spot the problem.
What is it?
How do/does he / she / they deal with it?
Why?
(Put your characters through hell. My wife sometimes says, “I don’t like this now.” And pouts. This means she cares about what’s happening to the characters, but she still can’t turn away from the story. The outcome is just around the corner)
The All-Important Outcome
To help build and nurture that fantastic idea is to use some excellent software, like Freemind and it is fantastic for helping answer these questions and more, and it will help you construct a plot. This is the roadmap and Freemind can lay out the highways and side streets. It is a learning curve to master but simple once you get the hang of it. And you’ll wonder how you survived without it.
A novelist views the world in text. A screenwriter views the world in visual snapshots. The trick is to combine the two.