Writing styles!

[GRIMSKULL]

Hello thank you for reading my ted talk....

I have a unique approach to writing and im curious if others have different styles as well. My story started as a dream that eventually grew over 10 years into a giant fantasy world, but each singular aspect of my story comes from an idea. example, oh what if everything is the same as earth but opposite apples taste like banana and vise versa then I build around that idea. Does anyone else have an idea based story writing style? Do you have a different style?

 

[Mad Swede]

OK, you mean your writing method not your writing style. That may seem pedantic, but it matters. Writing style is how you express yourself in your prose. Writing method is how you set about writing your story.

I think most of us start with an idea, but how we get that idea and how we then develop it into a story varies greatly. I take my ideas from things I've seen and done during my life. I think the ideas through in some detail until I've got the story straight, and then I write it down.

 

[pmmg]

What Ted Talk was that?

Yeah, like Mad Swede, I am not sure the question is about style... Feels more about process, or the origin of motivation or something.

I almost never remember my dreams, so they don't serve as a source for my fiction.

My story began with the intent to write a series of short stories, not unsimilar to Conan, featuring a Character and a small cast that might reappear. I decided to write the origin story, and it just blew up. I was initially trying to setup a character that would wander and get into adventures. (Maybe Solomon Kane would be a better example). But, the story took legs and now it is all novels. I am a novel writer at heart anyway. Writing short stories feels like being a square peg and looking at a round hole to me. Despite the multitudes of advice, I have gotten along the way about starting in shorts, I just don't really have it in me.

My typical process, when I am rolling along, is shoot for a scene a day, think about the next all night and during my commute, and then get that one done. Often, I have the whole story (where it is going), and the next three or four scenes in my head, all at the same time.

But I also promise to write every day, so...If I don't have a scene ready, I just make it up and write it ugly. More often than not, its a keeper. Sometimes I scrub it and start over when the right idea hits me.