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Saturday, January 04, 2014

Story Layout, Outlining, or Writer's Scribbling

I was in a writer's group the other day and someone asked me about how I outline my stories. I had to think about that as I'm not really an out-liner. Mostly I scribble a few notes on the first page and just take off.

Which made me wonder about other writers. In Stephen King's On Writing, he said he just takes two ideas and melds them together. Teen girl puberty + telekinesis, Haunted hotel + alcoholic with issues, Mother with broken car + Rabid dog, Nerdy teen boy + evil car.
I think he's got something there, the possibilities are endless!
Sparkley vampires + miserable teen girl, Boy wizard + strange school, Nerdy college girl + man with bondage issues.... all best sellers.

Mostly I go by the "what if's" and reach into my old Catholic issues. When I was a kid I was constantly questioning the rules of the Catholic church. This upset my Irish Catholic parents to no end. "Just believe," they'd say. "Have faith." I'd answer, "That makes no sense."
I mean if God is everywhere that means he's at my house, too, so why do I have to go to church on Sundays? At what point did Jesus say we needed to eat body and blood? It was something he did once in reference to a peek into his future. Isn't it kind of gross we mimic that? And why did he hang out with 12 guys? Okay, we won't go there. My experience in the Catholic church was not a good one. We had a bad priest who constantly screamed, yelled and embarrassed kids and adults alike. I never felt good there, just scared. Then he made my mother cry and there was no way I was going back.

So now I wonder about reincarnation. Isn't it kind of limiting that this is it? One life? One experience? Wouldn't' the grand scheme of things seem more complete if we could experience many types of lives? That got me to thinking if we do reincarnate we could come back as any gender and race. What if we can come back as animals? Then came Soul Mates. Which I would have given a different name if I had just searched that name on Amazon first.

The phrase, "A child shall lead them" got me thinking in what universe would any adult let a child lead? How old a child? A seven year old? Younger? Then came Threshold to Midnight which is not yet Amazon-ed. Coming soon.

Any of these stories began with a blurb. Just a bunch of sentences of what i wanted to write about, but no where near an outline.

So do you outline? Scribble? Or is there another way to layout a story?

2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Once you start asking questions, you cannot stop.

Aimlesswriter said...

How true Charles!

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