This was originally posted on my old blog, but since I've dug through my treasure chest full of plot ideas, I thought may be it a good moment to revive it :)
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This time, I want to say a few words
about story outlining, plotting and the works, because last night I
spent 4 hours plotting instead of sleeping and now my whole night rhythm
is ruined :D
In that space of time, I finished the following parts of a new story:
The theme
As always, erotica with a touch of violence. I had a
few stints in non-erotic fiction, but they always end up feeling boring
and kinda too serious to be fun. So, gay love, yeah! Much more fun to
imagine guys smooching.
The genre
Since I'm still writing the last paragraphs of my
paranormal stories, I stuck to a sci-fi and futuristic setting. My brain
sometimes decides to act like a muscle, and the same mental movement
("Vampire, Werewolf, violence, Vampire, Werewolf, violence,...") is
tiresome. I settled on "Cyberpunk", because I keep coming back to a song
by the band 'Archive', namely "Bullets", and there's a
great trailer-teaser for an up and coming PC game called "Cyberpunk 2077" featuring that song. I liked the mood, so there you have it, genre found.
The topic
This one was tricky. I didn't want to do another simple
romance flick, so I went cross-country through different issues I had
pondered in the past. Those thoughts keep popping up whenever I need
them, I like my muscle-brain! :D
Sooo. Topic. Since Cyberpunk
already has some restrictions, I based everything on a dystopic future
and filled it with things I wanted to try out. One of them is a soylent
green kind of idea, the other one is polyamory, because I have doubts
about the longevity of the concept of marriage in the future. And
finally, because I can't stay away, violence and implants.
The storyline
Oh, what I hard time I had with this :D If you've
got nothing but this one idea ("I really want to write something in the
cyberpunk genre, there's not enough of that around"), it's hard work to
make something of it. I started with writing cliff notes for my
characters, three protagonists, one main antagonist, one minor
antagonist, and gave them names and relations. Not much, just the
basics, like what their jobs are, their biggest flaws, their biggest
strengths, their special ability, and so on. I juggled them around until
their descriptions made sense before even touching the storyline
itself, brooded over this for a while and then began a rough draft of
what might happen.
It's a good idea to keep in mind that a story
needs a conflict of some kind, because that main conflict will help you
create everything else. A story always has more than one conflict, and
the main one doesn't even have to be obvious, but having it, starting it
at the beginning, keeping it going throughout and finally resolving it
in the end gives you something to hang on to. I hadn't done this in the
past, but I tried it this time and boy, does that work out well!
I
decided on multiple conflicts for this storyline, the main one being
the plan of my antagonist and the one cinch in it, a document that my
main protagonist stole unknowingly. To keep the sub-plot going, I
decided to give the shy second protagonist qualms about polyamory and a
deep love for the main protagonist, who doesn't do monogamy. I bridged
their differences with the third protagonist, who unknowingly helps them
find a way to be together. And to throw a stick in, I added a bit of
conflicting backgrounds and flaws.
Just by thinking those things
through, I was able to write a 3,000 words long storyline with chapters,
markers for the important climaxes and resolutions, and a harmonious
finale.
And finally, the characters
I'm not sure if I can actually
explain how I build them. When I get bored, my conscious nods off and
goes to night-night-world, where I imagine situations and daydream. I
remember about as much of those daydreams as I do from my nightly ones,
but sometimes a feeling, a snapshot or something else from that sticks
to my brain long enough to write it down. It's like, ever tried to
imagine a real asshole? I sometimes do that, and then start to shuffle
through all the different versions I can possibly think of. Then I add
some other condition, like 'what would he have to be like for me to like
him anyway?', and there my brain goes.
This is how I build my
characters. I find out what kind of character I want (Asshole? Loser?
Good son/daughter? Filthy rich? Joe Bloke?) and build on it, write down
cliffnotes and decide what their biggest flaws and biggest strengths
should be. Only after I have that, I try to find a reason as to why they
are as they are, what they should be when I'm finished with them, and
finally, what they look like and what kinds of habits and mannerisms
they have.
And if there is something I can't think of, I simply
leave it blank and fill it in once I've started writing. Sometimes, the
spur of the moment ideas are the best.
So,
this is what I did last night. If I wanted to, I could start writing
right now, but then I'd have another unfinished story and another drain
on my creative energy, so I'll leave it to simmer :)
Back to work now!
Love,
Hannah
