Do I just start writing?
Hi Everyone:
I
hope you keep checkingt my website because as soon as I figure out how to create and upload a PDF file I intend to post a very
special short story. It’s one of my favorites; I wrote it to help celebrate the
holiday season. It’s called The Man in
the Ironed Suit. Just go to the Short Story page at http://joshswritingroom.com
Perhaps you have an
idea for a story; it’s because of something you experienced, or it’s just an
idea that came to you as you were completing a household chore. You say to
yourself, gee, this would make a darn good story.
Perhaps you relate it
to a friend or to your spouse and the reaction you get is,
“Yeah,
you’re right; it’s a good idea, why don’t you write it?”
You
open your big mouth and say, “Maybe I will.”
You
are hooked and you think, I can do that, but what do I do first? Do I just
start writing my story? Don’t I need to write an outline or something?
The
answer to these questions plagues a lot of writers. The quick answer is YES. Both ways work. It is really up to
you.
Either way, you will need to create a
beginning, middle, and end. Most writers, who develop a story without an
outline, do at least; have a strong idea of its beginning and a tentative
ending. As they create the story and its main characters, and thrust them into
the conflict they envision, they often ask themselves, what’s the worst thing that can happen now? Creating that
horrendous event, and immersing characters in it, may propel the story in
unexpected directions. This is exciting and perfectly okay as long as it moves
the story forward. Authors, who only know the beginning and end, frequently
rely on frequent crucial events to help bridge the tricky middle ground of their
story. I suspect that a lot of stories that never get finished are gathering
dust because the writer failed to ask and act on the answer to that critical
question; what’s the worst thing that
can happen now?
You may decide that you
will be more comfortable writing your story if you first develop an outline. If
you take the time to develop the story with most of its twists and turns from
exciting beginning to climactic end, you will probably avoid those tricky
middle sections. It may take weeks to outline a novel and some parts of it may
be sketchy, but when you finish you will have a roadmap to use in guiding you
from one end of the story to the other, thus avoiding writer’s block.
You still need to ask yourself the same
critical question as shown above. And if you intend to write a mystery or a
story with mysterious circumstances, as you are about to reveal a clue, ask
yourself; does my reader need to know
this now?
I doubt that Charles
Dickens or Mark Twain ever wrote an outline but I once heard that Mario Puzo
had a huge message board that he used to diagram the structure of his mafia
gangs for The Godfather. I think a
large number of modern writers plot out their stories. Write an outline, use three
by five index cards, make diagrams, do whatever works. I’ve tried it both ways.
For me, storytelling is easier and quicker with the outline, but it’s much more
fun to write by the seat of my pants.
Don’t worry about it—just
write it. The real art of writing is in the re-write. As a character states in
my recent novel, Alex—Peanut Butter—And
Me, “Remember, you can always edit crap, but you can’t edit a blank page.”
Mark Twain, once said;
“There are few stories that have anything superlatively good in them except the
idea—and that is always bettered by
transplanting.”
