A story begins with an idea. It might be something as simple as an image, a “What if?” scenario, a certain type of character demanding to speak. But all stories start somewhere and it’s not usually via a helpful muse bringing the story down from the heavens on a velvet pillow, fully-formed and only needing the writer to simply record its magnificence via keyboard, typewriter or legal pad (R.I.P. Harlan Ellison).
Sometimes brainstorming can yield worthy nuggets. Other times it’s better for its entertainment value. Or attempts at entertainment value.
Keeping a journal of ideas (or the modern tech equivalent, like a note-taking app) can work.
Occasionally you can reach into the past, to unfinished or unsatisfying projects and either finish or rework them. For NaNoWriMo this would be cheating, but you’re in no danger of having a NaNo police officer arrest you for breaking the writing law.
I’ve drawn on all of these things to write stories, both for NaNo and otherwise. My success has been inconsistent and when a story dies, it is usually a long, drawn-out process. Usually it’s because the story loses direction–through lack of planning. The lack of planning is often rooted in a fear that plotting things out will kill both spontaneity and interest. This isn’t true, but like most fears, it’s hard to shake off.
Last year’s effort, which yielded a record zero words, was based on two things: a title and a vague, one-line elevator pitch. This is not enough. There’s no way this would ever be enough, unless some kind of writing miracle followed on November 1. And on the next 29 days. That did not happen.
The option that gives me the most to work with from the outset is to revive a stalled or incomplete story. My NaNo history is littered with these:
- 2010: Low Desert. This was originally a short story called “Hello?” about a man who returns from a camping trip to find the city–and presumably the world–empty of all people. I wrote very little on this for NaNo and the short story ending wouldn’t work for a novel-length treatment. I had loosely planned out the rest of the story, but ran out of gas before getting very far.
- 2011: The Dream of the Buckford Church. Also originally a short story. This really didn’t go anywhere and my ideas for the expanded version were as vague and mysterious as the short story (not a good thing).
- 2012: The Mean Mind (winner) I wrote 50,000 words on this so yay me. But I didn’t actually finish the story. This one I outlined to a certain extent, but I had some doubts about some big plot elements and the ending was still ill-defined (do you see a trend here?)
- 2013: The Start of the World. A guy who can see glimpses of a parallel version of our world is told by a mysterious truck driver that he is going to “restart the world.” There will be three signs, then off he goes! As a high concept, it worked and I wrote several chapters, but I had on idea where it would go, other than somehow he would keep the different worlds from intersecting, which would be really bad. I wrote this while reading The Dark Tower series and it definitely shows.
- 2015: Weirdsmith. This has a somewhat convoluted history. It started as an (unfinished) play and the title character was a psychotic killer insinuating himself into the lives of a couple who “rescue” him when they find him injured in the woods. Somehow it evolved into a story about a man who nearly dies in a car crash and after a long recovery finds a blank journal and when he writes in it, things happen. What things? Details, details. It’s like the first half of a really exciting elevator pitch and then the person giving the pitch gets out of the elevator and you never see them again.
- 2016: Last Exit (or Last Stop). I love altered reality stories. This one had a guy in tech support start noticing lots of small details in his daily life seeming a bit off. Eventually, he starts following a strange cat that leads him to a weird buzzing blue portal that leads him into a desert. He always seems to end up waking up in bed, so he becomes convinced he’s just having a weird dream or dreams, but eventually things start to happen that blur the lines between the waking world and what he thinks are dreams. And then who knows, because I never got past the first few scenes.
As you can see, this list has a recurring theme of “What the hell happens next/how does this all end?” Trying to tease out which one would be the “easiest” to finish won’t be easy, but I will try…tomorrow.
