A couple of weeks back the fabulous Confabulators weighed in on where their writing ideas come from.\u00a0 I may backtrack a bit over some of that territory, because where they come from seems to be connected to the ideas I end up pursuing past the ‘idea’ stage.<\/p>\n
Looking back on the thousands of words I’ve written, I sort of see this pattern: for a novel or short story, what usually what gets me going, and keeps me engaged, is something I’m struggling to understand in my own life.<\/p>\n
For example:<\/p>\n
~The aftermath of the unexplained death of my father became a short story about the changing relationship of two brothers, as one pulls away from what’s left of his family.<\/p>\n
~Trying to understand marriage became a novel exploring the lives of a girl traded into white slavery and a man raised in the 1960’s \u201cwho did everything right and failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
~The idea of refuge and the families we make became a novel about the friendships between gay theater kids in college and their circle of friends (‘Fame<\/em> meets Boogie Nights’<\/em>.)<\/p>\n ~Addiction, the allure of escapism, and personal betrayals (both perpetrated and experienced) became a book about a young girl’s search for her birth parents in an alternate reality.<\/p>\n Once I feel the idea and the accompanying urge to<\/em> write about it, I ask myself:<\/p>\n 1) It is compelling enough to hold my interest through the long slog you know it’s going to be?<\/strong><\/p>\n 2) Can the idea teach me, show me something, help me understand myself, and the world, better?<\/strong><\/p>\n 3) How can I show it in a story?\u00a0 Can I show it in a compelling way?\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n 4) Will others care about this?<\/strong><\/p>\n 5) Can I pull it off the way I want and need to make it the best it can be?<\/strong><\/p>\n Often, these questions only get answered through the process of brainstorming, experimenting, and actually writing, sometimes multiple drafts.\u00a0 I should also say this process is not linear or even always conscious on my part. What works is often not what I expected. It just seems that the ideas that stick with me and bear the most delicious fruit end up answering these questions in the positive.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I do follow my instincts. Even if I feel an idea is not going anywhere but I<\/em> like it, I give it a try.\u00a0 On the flip side, even if someone else thinks it’s a great idea, if I don’t like it, I know I won’t stick with it. I never go with the flavor of the month.\u00a0 It just won’t work if I’m not feeling it\u2014unless there’s a paycheck attached, but I’m not quite there yet!<\/p>\n This is all to say that I tend to be engaged by and enjoy complex ideas and themes, and am learning that even though I can’t stick with simplistic ideas because I get bored, distilling it down to my main point and keeping a story structure that expresses those ideas simply seems best for me. It’s more manageable and (imho) and has a greater capacity for richness and focus, and, in turn, is more accessible and compelling to readers.<\/p>\n Or I may not follow a process at all and just write.\u00a0 Apply ass to chair, can’t lose.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A couple of weeks back the fabulous Confabulators weighed in on where their writing ideas come from.\u00a0 I may backtrack a bit over some of that territory, because where they come from seems to be connected to the ideas I end up pursuing past the ‘idea’ stage. Looking back on the thousands of words I’ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[126,369,534,625,764,875,1003,1063,1067,1276],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-brainstorming","tag-experimenting","tag-ideas","tag-life","tag-novels","tag-process-2","tag-short-stories","tag-stories","tag-story-development","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}