What do you do when you only have part of the story you want to write. Stories sometimes comes to us in strange ways. It's rare for someone to have the entire story come to them in their mind before they start writing the zero or first draft. This cure will work whether you’re a plotter or a pantser (someone who writes with no outline or plan).
Most of us have been here. You have an idea for a book or you have an idea for a character. Sometimes that’s all we have a piece of an idea and nothing else. Today I’m going to share a quick cure for what to do when you only have part of a story idea.
What is the secret? What if... or what now... Yes, it’s that simple. The question, what if or what now. Let me show you some examples.
I have a character.
You know how it goes, you have an idea for this great character. But, that’s all you have. What do you do now?
What if?
What if your character found something in an unusual place or way?
What if your character found themselves in a stranger than normal situation?
What if your character mistakes someone for someone else and embarrasses themselves?
Come up with something that can happen to your character. In literature, we call this the inciting incident.
According to ReedsyBlog Blog > Perfecting your Craft Posted on Nov 01, 2018
Fiction 101: What is the Inciting Incident? Definition & Examples
“The inciting incident is the narrative event that launches the main action.” You can read the rest of the blog post here https://blog.reedsy.com/inciting-incident/
I have the beginning.
Maybe you have the inciting incident, but that’s all you have. What to do?
What now?
Ask yourself what happens now that they found the letter on their wall behind the wallpaper. This is the place where your characters wants go up against the needs of the inciting incident. Your character might just want to redecorate the room, but the desire to know what the letter means is too strong for them to let it go. This is story tension. Your character’s wants and needs vs. the story, antagonist, their own desire, or the quest. Remember, one of our jobs as a writer is to make things difficult for our characters.
I have a scene.
I’ve been here laying in bed and my brain gives me a beautiful scene for a story. Often it’s the story I’m not working on at the moment. Luckily I have an app that does speech to text so I can record those scenes and go back to sleep. But what do you do if you have a scene and that’s it? You might not even know who all is in that scene. What can you do with that?
Either works for this:
What if?
What if you put someone in the scene that would be extremely uncomfortable?
What if you had a surprise happen at the end of the scene like a major revelation?
Or
What now?
What happens now that you have all these characters in this scene?
What happens now that they’ve read the will?
Or
What happened?
What happened before this scene?
I have the end.
I know how my Urban Fantasy Noir Mystery series is going to end. Luckily I’ve also written the 2nd draft of the first novel. Having the end of a story is so handy and often people have the beginning and no idea where the story is going to end.
What happened? Works well for this instance. You can use all these methods to backtrack to the beginning of the story. It’s like reverse engineering your story.
I have a troupe I love and want to write.
I love the romance troupe where one person thinks the person they are crushing on hates them, when really they are trying to keep their feelings bottled up. What do you do if all you have is the desire to write a story with a certain troupe?
What if? Is one of the best options for this kind of situation. Take a few moments and see if you can’t come up with an idea about the troupe that excites you. After all, we write for ourselves and share our stories. I would not recommend trying to write for others. Get excited by asking what if and what now questions?
What did we learn?
The most important thing I hope you walk away with is that having any of these situations is wonderful and a great jumping-off point to get excited about your story. Ask some simple questions and you can get going before you know it. Good luck and happy writing.
Did you find this helpful? Please let me know if you think of this cure for your situation.
What have you done when you found yourself in this situation? I often use this for subplots after I’ve plotted the dominant story.
What I’m working on this week.
I've been revising book 3 of The Fire Series If the Seas Catch Fire. 34 chapters in 1800 minutes.
This is the last week of Camp as of yesterday I have 5 more chapters to revise. I've revised 29 chapters in a little over 1,100 minutes. I can't believe that I'm going to finish this revision in under 1800 minutes for the month.
If you would like to sign up for the Beta Read for this story keep your eyes on my Newsletter the sign up is coming soon.
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