How do you "Work on it"?

[YohannIan]

How do you work on it?
Your Novel, your world, Your fantasy?
How do I be constructive? Story, character and world building aren't exactly like video editing. In video editing, or playing a game, you can devote hours into it and expect to see a result (with great effect).

But the same cannot be said for the novel. I could spend 3 hours at my desk thinking of the best story I want, only to realize later that I'm unsure or half-hearted about that story. I'm not talking about actually writing the story in words here. I'm talking about generating ideas and plot. And finalizing on what is good for the story. Catch my drift?

It's like, there isn't really a tangible way to be sure that those 3 hours were actually put into
the creation of the book. Is there an 'exercise', practice or method that I can do to efficiently generate ideas and plots?

Sorry for the vague explanation. It's like creating a sword- hammering the molten iron. Every time it takes shape, you don't find it suitable. So you hit it again to yet another shape...

 

[void141]

The way I do it is through recycling. After about 20 attempts to devise the ultimate great plot for my novel, I gave up. As you say, this feeling of half-heartedness can be overwhelming and it is what eventually makes you give up.

My personal approach to this problem is: I never abandon an idea, no matter how bad it sounds to me at some point. Instead, I retire it and start with something else. And when I come up with the next great idea, I search for a way to incorporate the old one into the new one somehow. In 90% of the cases it is possible.

This way, whenever you start over, you don't have this feeling of wasting hours of your life - instead, you know that what you wrote before will definitely serve some purpose sooner or later, which means that all your efforts are constantly focused on one goal. By thinking like this I finally managed to complete my first outline.

 

[Devor]

When I plan I try to combine as many different elements and character ideas as seem relevant, and then I go back and cut just before I start to write. I find that working with a larger list of ideas helps me to find connections and patterns that I wouldn't see otherwise. And then I can trust my judgement in cutting the ones that seem superfluous after I see how they do or do not connect to the rest of the story.

 

[Chilari]

What you're talking about - the idea generation and refinement part of writing - isn't something that can be easily structured. The actual ideas for stories, for me at least, can come at any time, regardless of what I'm doing. Characters take some work, sure, but initially it's more about asking myself what I want in a main character, an antagonist, etc, and building on it from there. As for sorting out the plot, that, I suppose, can be done at your desk once you've got the first few threads of ideas and characters, but similarly, it doesn't come easily. I start by thinking about what sounds good, what the characters are likely to care about or come into contact with, what message I want to convey with the story, whether I want a happy ending or not, and so on.

But then I need time doing other things to let the ideas and thoughts stew for a bit. Anything from a day to a few weeks. And I think about the story, about the characters, about what the ultimate conclusion is likely to be, how to get from point A to point B, and so on. I ask questions of the plot - mostly how and why questions - and work through things. Sometimes I make a note or two. After I've let the story stew, I open a document and just put down my thoughts as they stand - what the plot is about, what the key aspects of the main character are, why characters act in certain ways, what the economic, political, and magical situations are, if they're important. Generally I come out with a three or four page document that's just me working through it. Then I let it stew a bit longer, before trying to set out in a single paragraph what the plot is. If that plot paragraph doesn't make sense - if there are massive questions that must be asked of it and no answers for them within the paragraph - I go back and try to fix the problem. And I keep doing that until I give up on the whole thing or else fix the problems and move to the next stage - the one page synopsis, and again, if things don't make sense in that, I've got more work to do. It's a difficult process, not always or even often successful, but what it does do is make sure I don't spend months working on something which is flawed from the outset, and it helps me improve my ways of thinking with the next story idea.

As for the discarded stuff, none of it is truly discarded. It's all chalked up to experience - after all, if you're learning to draw, you have to produce a lot of bad drawings before you get good, and the same is the case with writing - but also I often reuse elements of the story. Motivation of a character, the relationship between two characters, the political landscape, the magic system, the religion, entire characters, conflicts, themes, messages, etc.

It all takes time, with apparently very little being produced, but for one I enjoy it so I don't mind, and for another it's all helping me to improve as a writer, so it is worthwhile. It just requires patience.

 

[ShortHair]

Recognizing a good idea, like writing itself, is a skill you pick up over time. You do more than gauge its intrinsic worth. Will it work in your story? Can you do it justice? How does it affect what you've already plotted or written? Will it fit into your vision of a particular character or scene? Should it go into this story or that one?

A related skill is putting ideas together. There are no blueprints for a good story.

On the other hand, one of the hardest things you'll ever do as a writer is to realize that a beloved idea is a bad idea. As much as you want to use it, to shoehorn it in somewhere, you know that your story will suffer if you do.

 

[Shasjas]

i disagree with your point about video editing. surely you can devote hours into it and then realise that youve done it completely wrong and you have to go and get the original video and start again? its the same with any creative process. painting a picture. its difficult to think of ideas for what to paint.

playing a game is different. the stuff has already been created for you. its equivalent to the reader of a book. you do put something into it, and you do get something out of it, but not in the same way as if you were the one who created the game or book. And so it requires much less effort and thinking time to get stuff out of these things than it does if you are the one doing the creating.

 

[Arcturus]

With your example of video editing, the material is already there in a condenced form. When working on a novel, I gather as much information on the subject as I can and put it all on one document. Then I kind of build on the idea by incorporating real world experiences until I get something coherent enough for a story. Sometimes I steal elements from something I had read, but I generally change it up enough to make it my own.

 

[YohannIan]

i disagree with your point about video editing. surely you can devote hours into it and then realise that youve done it completely wrong and you have to go and get the original video and start again? its the same with any creative process. painting a picture. its difficult to think of ideas for what to paint.

playing a game is different. the stuff has already been created for you. its equivalent to the reader of a book. you do put something into it, and you do get something out of it, but not in the same way as if you were the one who created the game or book. And so it requires much less effort and thinking time to get stuff out of these things than it does if you are the one doing the creating.

I can understand what you mean by 'having to start again'. But in editing a video, rarely does anyone redo the thing twenty times as what void141 does with his/her story. In video editing, there is often a kind of direction that we already have (one that is laid out by the director or the pre-written script). But this isn't the case with story making. When writing the story I often tell myself 'This doesn't seem right, or this isn't what I'm looking for.' And at times you end up discarding entire ideas.

But then again, I understand from most people in this thread that ideas are not really 'discarded' in the sense that you burn them away. They are just put aside to make way for a new one, and later, those old ideas could come in to add to the new ones.

In a way, with doing something that's laid out, you have that feel that you're getting somewhere the more time you spend on it. When coming up with my story/world I couldn't help but think to myself "How far have I gotten actually? Am I getting anywhere?"

But that's where patience comes in. But how do I differentiate patience from non-productivity?

 

[aderyn]

If you're spending three hours at your desk trying to think of a story then I'd suggest you're going about it the wrong way. A story would never come to me if I did it that way. My stories come from my imagining. When I go for a walk with the dog, often that is when I come up with great epics! Let your mind wander and daydream. Then, when you have a solid kernel of an idea, sit at your desk for three hours.