{"id":817,"date":"2012-01-27T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=817"},"modified":"2012-01-27T06:00:09","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T12:00:09","slug":"storytellers-vagary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=817","title":{"rendered":"Storyteller’s Vagary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Q: How does an idea get developed?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: In the dark with another idea rubbing up against it.<\/p>\n

Q: How does an idea get developed?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: One thought plus one notion equals One Idea. Take three or four Ideas, apply Heat and alchemically a story appears in the mist.<\/p>\n

Q: How does an idea get developed?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: Ideas + Heat = Story.<\/p>\n

Not very helpful answers to an odd question. These are the sort of answers that I\u2019ve read from several authors, the sort of thing that\u2019s been frustrating as I have tried to grow as a storyteller. It doesn\u2019t really mean any one thing and can be interpreted so many different ways that it\u2019s ultimately meaningless. I\u2019ve tried to relate what I do to percolating coffee, sauteeing vegetables, aging whiskey or fermenting wine. None of them have been good analogies and all have been even worse metaphors.<\/p>\n

Dreams are part of the mix, to be sure. Anything that recycles or goes over an idea until it coheres is helpful. They\u2019re not the most important thing because they\u2019re irregular and for some reason I don\u2019t always remember them. I can do the self-hypnotizing thing and try to remember them, and that works, but it\u2019s not the most reliable thing I can do.<\/p>\n

For me – and I\u2019ve been struggling with how to tell you this – developing a notion into an Idea is kind of mystical. I know, it\u2019s not all that helpful. Being truthful, going back to the Idea Still, it really is a mystery to me how an Idea gets turned into a story. It\u2019s one part Interest, one part Need and who knows what else. What I can and will share with you below (and this is my fourth attempt at quantifying all this) are two things that I do to facilitate the mystical process.<\/p>\n

WRITE IT DOWN<\/p>\n

Easiest thing in the world to do, just put pen to paper and throw down whatever\u2019s coming to me. I\u2019ve got notebooks and scraps of paper everywhere. The best one is a spiral notebook divided into three sections of about sixty pages each and it\u2019s half full of scribblings about this and that. When I use one of the ideas or notions there, I cross it off.<\/p>\n

Writing things down solidifies them in my mind. I\u2019ve got so many things vying for my attention in my head that if I tried to hold on to things in there alone I wouldn\u2019t be able to access them. I know some writers can do that, I can\u2019t. I have to write things down.<\/p>\n

WALK IT OUT<\/p>\n

The best thing I can do for my writing is to exercise on a regular basis. My favorite thing to do is take a three-mile powerwalk first thing in the morning before the chickens are up. That part of the day where the city is just waking up and the possibilities of the day are endless is where I get a good chunk of thinking done. I often come home from that walk with an insight into the story I\u2019m working on. I\u2019ve solved plot problems, work problems and any number of other things on that walk.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t emphasize enough how important exercise is to a writer. You have to move your body to stimulate your mind. It\u2019s science, look it up. The data is there.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to synthesize what I do into five or six hundred words. I hope that the more I think about it, the more I walk it out, I\u2019ll be able to give a more concise and satisfying answer. Maybe not though. Perhaps it\u2019s best that some things are more mysterious than others, yeah?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q: How does an idea get developed? A: In the dark with another idea rubbing up against it. Q: How does an idea get developed? A: One thought plus one notion equals One Idea. Take three or four Ideas, apply Heat and alchemically a story appears in the mist. Q: How does an idea get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[365,534],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-exercise","tag-ideas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}