Adventures in Writing

1) Creating a story

Creating a Story

So you want to write, but you have no idea what you want to write. You want to be original. You want to steer away from the cliche story lines and you want something that will knock the socks off people. And that's no surprise. That's what every writer wants, but here are some things to keep in mind:

Everything has been done. To say you want don't want to be "cliche" is to say that you want to come up with something that has never been done, but unfortunately, as a writer you need to come to terms with the fact that what you are thinking of has probably already been done before. And it sounds depressing now, but don't worry! That's not what writing is. It's not a competition to come up with the most original idea.

No. Your job as a writer is to write something that YOU want to write. If you're writing something YOU want to write, you will pour your heart and soul into it. You will have fun and your readers will feel that in your work and they will also begin to enjoy your work.

"But I don't want to write something that's already been done!"

That's not the point. Find something that you love. And write it. Make it your own. That is what you do as a writer. You take an idea and you tinker with it. You poke and prod at it until you find something that makes sense to you.

Ask yourself questions.

"Has anyone done this before? If so, how? If not, how can I make it mine?"

Let's take werewolves, for example, since they seem to be relatively popular. You've read werewolf books, and you love the concept. Werewolves fascinate you, but you don't want to write the same boring spiel all over again like countless writers before you. You want to play with the werewolf concept. Start asking questions.

"What if the werewolf did this, instead of that? What if the werewolf turns into half a wolf and not a full wolf, or vice versa? What if their werewolf legend is different from other werewolf legends?"

Now you're off to a good start. Next comes the fun part.

Research.

Before you even think about writing that book, you get your butt over to your ol' pal Google and start looking up werewolf articles. Where did the werewolf originate? Are there any newspaper articles that discuss possible sightings? What country seems to put the most emphasis on them?

Keep going. Research as much as you can about werewolves until you feel you know enough that, if someone were to ask you, "gee, I wonder where werewolves come from" and you instantly jump to several different possible origin stories.

Once you've gotten research out the way, now it's time to plot. Plotting can be a lot harder than people think. You're afraid that all the plots that you come up with, someone's already done.

And again, toss that worry out the window. Nobody cares what those other authors wrote.

It's about what YOU want to write and how YOU want to write it.

Now that you've got your concept idea, being werewolves in this example, you can start asking MORE questions. Because your job as a writer is to constantly ask questions. What kind of werewolf plot would people want to read? Which one is the most overdone and repetitive? How can I mold it into my own plot?

"What if there's a pack in hiding and they're suddenly exposed? Oh my gosh, who exposed them? Was it the neighbor kid down the street or someone who went to school with a member of the pack? Does the pack even go to school or are they homeschooled? Do they try to fit into the modern world or do they literally hide in the woods off the edge of a small town, or just completely isolated in the mountains?"

Again, that would also depend on what type of werewolf you want to write about.

Think, think, think.

Question, question, question.

The fun part about plotting is that it's incredibly flexible. You may not have the whole solid plot before you write, and that's totally okay! Some authors don't even have the whole plot planned out, just the ending, so that's all they write before they come up with the rest of the story.

As long as you have a basic idea of the story, you can write it.

Thus, you have created a story.

Congratulations. You're now the mother of a bunch of crazy characters and their world.