Sunday, June 13, 2010

Story ideas

I have many wisps of story ideas. They float through that not-here, not-there time-space just before I come fully awake in the morning. They jump up and down when I watch the news. They parade right in front of me as I listen to the people around me talk about their everyday troubles and joys.
My challenge is to take the right number of ideas (plot lines), prioritize them (main, secondary), and weave them together into a workable fluid outline.

7 comments:

  1. Hi

    I feel for you Anne, all that puzzling to be done.

    I dont get any of that. I see a figerative painting, often it inspires me to wonder who the person or people are and my subconscious snatches what I've seen from the conscious imagination and logs it, and then replays it all as a complete movie in which the characters reveal their individual thoughts and thereby tell their story in cinematic glory.

    My job is to put those images and thoughts into words! I'm having a crack at category romance and historicals at the moment, 3 50,000 wrds done, two dusted and out on slushpiles and 3rd just completed and about to go to the cutting room floor for honing and polishing.

    My aim is to crack on with a 4th (historical genre) which will make it 4 novels written within one year. Not bad going, but whether they'll get published is another matter entirely. If not I'll return to mainstream = 1 novel per year.

    best
    F

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  2. Wowzer, Francine. That's gifted.

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  3. I hate when I have an idea in bed and I'm too lazy to get up and write it down. My thing now is to say it out loud because I seem to remember it that way.

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  4. Ideas do seem to come at all times and places. It's the organizing and making them coherent part that is sometimes a challenge...sounds like you have a great handle on that!

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  5. Love your description of 'wisps' of ideas! That's esxactly what they are. They float towards you from many different angles. The trick is knowing which ones to grab! :-)

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  6. Wow, Francine! 4 novels in a year, that's quite something! I can only concentrate on one at a time!

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  7. Hi Ana,

    I'm not sure about gifted, as such, but I do love browsing paintings. A portait can have a hidden story in my mind. It can be a smile, laughing eyes etc. But images representing motion have hidden clues too, like the one I posted on my blog of two men in battle on horseback during the English Civil War. It inspired a novel, at present on HM&B historical slushpile, gathering specs of ancient editor sleepy-dust no doubt! ;)


    Hi Paula,

    Yes, but the 4 only equates to 200,000 words. I do take a year over mainstream novels! ;)

    best to both

    F

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