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how to make ideas become a structure.

Gav

Scribe
Hey all who happen to read this!
to give a quick recap of my situation, i have only very recently tried to get back into writing after a long loooong time of not doing it at all.

anyway, what i was hoping someone could help with is this:

since getting back into writing i have been predominately writing a lot of out of context ideas or extracts, focusing on building specific scenarios or describing certain kind of places/characters events without having to spend too much time building a world up for them, purely just to get back into how i write and just practicing my writing techniques in general.

The issue i now find myself with is that i have quite a lot of these excepts now (around 10,00 words spread over about 20 or so extracts of massively varying lengths) and i have found i'm having trouble trying to build a full story out of them, they world they are all set in could easily be shared between them all, but the extracts themselves just aren't similar enough to use as part of a single story as initially i never wrote them as such.

have a made things much harder for myself with what i have done? should i put these all to one side and try to start from scratch on something new, or is there anything anyone could recommended on how to focus things down.

i appreciate any information anyone could pass on.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
have a made things much harder for myself with what i have done?

Maybe. Hard to say. Maybe try this and see if it helps:

Think about one thing you to do with your work, one of those excerpts you've written. Now create an outline.

1 -
2 -
3 -
4 - This is that thing.
5 -
6 -

Just for the moment, anything before the "thing" is setup and anything after it we'll call aftermath. What needs to happen to setup your excerpt? What's the necessary aftermath? Break it out into steps.

Now do it again with your other excerpts. What's the necessary setup? What's the aftermath? What are the steps?

Now create a new outline, and space out the excerpts accordingly. Then fill in the setups and aftermaths of each so that they overlap and you can fit in everything that's necessary and figure out your structure. Anything you can't fit on the new outline has to go.
 
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Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
I too start a story with about five good scenes that I love. But where I differ is that I write the scenes based upon the characters I intend to use in the book.

Would it be possible to select five or ten excerpts and base your book around them? If you picked the most cohesive, you could save the others for another work.
 

JCFarnham

Auror
I can't speak from your perspective, but if I did it? Yes it's making it harder for my self. We're not talking about me though haha we all work differently don't we.

SO, Devor got there pretty quickly. With a bit of luck I can add something new.

Here's a modified version of my usual advice:
1) Pick one scene/excerpt.
2) Ask yourself as many questions about it as you possibly can.
3) By this point you should find some worldbuilding emerging ("why is this like that? who is ____? What? where? etc."). Organise this and keep asking those investigatory questions.

Hopefully you'll find that once you work through what you have there'll be a good amount of over lap in places. Oh and don't forget, anything can be fixed. There is no unfixable problem. If a scene isn't working, alter it and MAKE IT work.
 

Ghost

Inkling
Since people have talked about expanding on ideas, I'll talk about using the ones you already have. If you're like me, you need to have an inkling of what the story or book is about before you outline it. I don't know what ideas and extracts you've got, but you might be able to come up with plots by combining scenes/scenarios. I prefer combining disparate ideas into one cohesive whole because it's less intuitive and it's like solving a puzzle. A concept can be pruned from one area and grafted to another. Don't be afraid to dissect your ideas or let them cannabalize each other. It's easier if you dissociate a bit. Being too attached at this stage will probably hold you back, unless you focus that energy on one concept and flesh it out like Devor and JCFarnham recommended.

When picking ideas for similarity, it helps me to compare compare tone and the core conflict. It's easy to get distracted by the characters, the words, the setting. By looking at the essence of the idea, I can more easily merge it with another or develop it further.
 

Saigonnus

Auror
Perhaps they could parts of the same story in regards that it is events or scenarios that are happening to different characters of the story. Maybe a build up to how they meet, or if they have met already a "flashback" when something in the present triggers their memories. They could be completely dissimilar and still mesh if you do it right.

The only way they won't easily mesh is if perhaps they are set in different "eras" or timeframes (i.e. some in the future, some in the past) but even that could be worked in with the right type of story (like about a person capable of traveling through time).

I would say to take a hard look at the basis of the scenarios and try to find ways they can be connected together in some way. You probably won't be able to use ALL of the concepts you have, but even 5K words is a good start to a story.
 
There's already plenty of good advice here, although I suspect gavin tonks is close to the mark in your case. (If he wasn't you wouldn't be asking.)

Most of the other advice has been about technical/creative ways you might get the most out of the ideas you've had - all of them perfectly valid and bound to work in all sorts of interesting ways, depending on the type of writer you are.

Are you the sort of person who is always bursting with ideas, or does inspiration come only occasionally? If the latter, then the advice you've been given so far will be very useful. If, however, you can't go five minutes without having another epiphane, you should simply wait until the magic descends.

I don't like to force anything. I've always got numerous ideas on the boil and I'm currently working on several different novels at once (in four different genres and all in different stages of completion). Maybe this is you and that's why you're finding it hard to make coherent sense of so many ideas.

Just keep writing if that's your passion and eventually the connections will start to form and you'll suddenly realise one day that a coherent story idea has emerged from all the chaos.

That's when it gets exciting.
 

Gav

Scribe
thanks for all the advice folks!

so far what i have tried to do is try break down the extracts into what i feel are common themes and feelings between themselves.
being a lot more critical and trying to purely look at them not as their own stories, but as a small part of a over arching theme.
i think i have managed to get them into 3 basic groups.
as of the moment one isn't jumping out in particular as THE one i want to work with, but its a start at least and certainly feels much less jumbled than it was before.

the planning advice from above should hopefully make it a little more easy to work out a rough skeleton to build on for them.

thanks again folks, once i have something more substantial and a proper decision on what im doing i will try to post a bit of it up in the showcase to let you have your input and see what you think.
 

gavintonks

Maester
I have noticed many people forget the reason you are writing, which is an engaging story that entertains, how the story unfolds and where is the skill of the writer and using his characters - however far too many concepts and ideas come across as role playing games and not stories, I doubt many readers worry about what colour leaves the trees have unless the leaves are ninja killing leaves.
your story is first and foremost a love story or horror or murder then it becomes the characters etc. Your reader is rooting for an outcome on behalf or for a character.Look at Lord of the Rings and actually try and find landscape description - there basically isn't any as you make it up, now only people have a sense because of the success of the movie, and the cameras being in a similar place.
Do not fixate on the where it is more important how the story moves forward entertains and grabs.It is not a travelogue of your imagination if I can be so blunt.
 
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