How do I write a story (and maybe can help you with yours) - A stupid guide
Hello, I hope you’ll doing fine ^^ This is some kind of crazy-quickly-not-so-quickly-actually-not-quickly-at-all tutorial for you who like to write. I hope to help you (with something, I swear)
So, I was talking to a friend recently and she asked me to help her with her ideas and it came up to me that, perhaps, there’s a lot of people around the world with the very same issues. I’m not a writer goddess or anything else, but I have my own way to organize my stories and maybe (just maybe) it could be useful for someone in the future, so I decided to make a tutorial of how I work with my own ideas for you.
I just want to make it clear that every person is different and have a different “creativity channel” in their brain, also they work in different ways to achieve their objectives. If this tutorial don’t work for you, maybe it’s because you have a different way to organize your own ideas, and that’s perfectly fine, it’s ok. I’ll be glad if I can help with one or another querry and I’ll be glad if this little tutorial reach the people who’s facing their worst creative blocks.
Let’s do this, ok? And let me know if it helps ^^
Sounds stupid to say, but that’s the ulterius truth, first of all: have an idea. It doesn’t need to be awesome, or complete, or genius, it just need to make you think that it worth your effort and your time to work on it. It can be just a scene, or a dialogue, or even just a sentence, but there’s one thing that’s important in this step: your idea HAVE TO BE stuck on your brain as long as you can possible afford. Do you know that feeling when you just can’t take something off of your mind because it gives you chills? That’s the thing we’re looking for here. That’s what we need in this step.
Now that you have your idea, work on it. Write every single detail that came up to you, write and write and write. Don’t organize nothing, just write. We don’t want to lose anything, right? So write in somewhere you can find after, in somewhere safe. I use and suggest Google Docs or your email box because I think it’s pretty safe and I can have access in literally anywhere, but if you have your own preference, then use your site/editor as you like ^^
If you’re feeling satisfied with whatever you wrote, then it’s time to start the dirty job: Planning your story.
Now you have your idea, but you don’t have a sketch yet, it’s just a messy conglomerate of story material, we need to dilapidated that stuff. I prefer to work with handwriting in this stage, but you don’t have to, you can use your favorite site/editor as well. I’ll show you what I do in my notebook with a ugly paint image just to illustrate (sorry, don’t hate me <3 )
The word here is organization. Don’t worry with details, think in the universe. I like to make an analogy with a house being built it. Write is just like build a new house, you can’t start from the roof, first you’ll need to start from the foundation, to make sure it’ll won’t fall apart after the end of your building process. Work in a few sentences, just to clarify what happens next and what consequences every event will have in your story.
When you finish this stage, it means you have a sketch to look up when you get lost. You’ll use this sketch a lot during your write process, so keep it close and safe.
As I said before, I’m gonna show you what works for me, it doesn’t mean that it’ll work for everyone. Some people prefer to start from the location (or universe), but for me it’s easier to create my characters first and I’ll tell you why.
Everytime I create a story, I spend some time thinking “what kind of person would do that? Would want that? Would hate that? Do they believe in that or this kind of thing? Where they live? What they do?”, as soon as I have my answers, I start to think of them and their features. It’s never the places that gives me my characters, on the contrary, it’s ALWAYS my characters who gives me the places.
I work with two kind of tools for that: Google Docs and a site.
It have a lot of sites around there, but I personally like notebook.ai. It’s simple and complete for the things I need, you can create characters, universes, locations, itens and even custom pages. Let’s create a character together, right?
01. That’s the page you’ll look for. You just need to find the CHARACTERS in the left sided menu. You’ll can switch along the features of your character at the right sided menu and, at the end of your process (or along with it, like I prefer), saving your progress.
02. So you’ll start to create your character. You’ll notice that every category has a short text to help and guide you if you get lost. All you need to do is to answer the question with the most detailed words that you find. Keep in mind that you need to know exactly who this person is, what do they like, what do they hate, what do they want, what do they fear, what do they believe… At the end, you’ll notice that you know your character as if your character is one of your best friends (or even your family).
03. Everytime you click in the save button, you’ll need to click in the editing button to continue to create your character. That’s how your screen will look like when you finish.
As soon as you finish all your characters, you’ll have the history of their lives. You’ll know them better than no one else, so let’s start to think about your scenarios.
I don’t know how it work for you, but for me, as soon as I know all of my characters, I know what place they belong too. I still don’t know how do I do that, I just - somehow - know. If you aren’t like that, you’ll need to choose what kind of ambient your story will take place to. If that’s your first story, or if you’re not feeling comfortable to explore new places, choose one that you know. I suggest that you start with your own town ^^ Knowing your scenario makes everything simple.
But if you like to explore the unknown (like myself hehe), I have a tip for you. It’s something new, nobody knows yet. It’s something incredible, almost like magic, and it calls…
Yep, you read it. Google. As simple as it can be. Take the “keep it simple” and use as your motto when your work in a new project, that’s always my advice. Choose some place and Google it, but you’ll have to make THE search, do you understand?
Use every resource: Maps, images, news, travel tips, best locations, watch videos of people who actually live there, read about their culture, their beliefs, read about their history, listen their musics, walk through their streets with Google view, choose places where your characters like, want to go, go often, go not so often, google this places to know how it works… Search for everything.
The most important thing you’ll need to keep in mind is: You need to know this place as like you’re living there for a long time. You’re not a visitor, you’re a dweller.
Well, now we know what kind of story we want to tell, what events happen along the story line, what kind of people we’re dealing with and what kind of place their using as a home place. All we need to do right now is writing.
At this point you’ll find out that you know this people, and you know this place, and you know what kind of thing they’re willing to do (or not willing to do). At this point you’ll find out that your story will not sound like some fictional story you came up with in a creativity moment of your life, no, your story will sound like some history one of your friends told you and you thought it was so good you need to share to the world. So all you have to do is write.
Write, write, write and write.
And if you feel lost at some point, just ask one of your characters, think what do they would do. You already know them, you’ll find out one way or another. If you’re starving for another tip, well, I have a good one that I found at Pinterest:
If you’re lost, think about what do your character wants the most, then do the complete opposite.
That’s no more time to simplify things, you’ll need to make it hard for them, you’ll need to make your character think, work hard, fight against the world - alone at some points. I know that you must love your character, and that’s exactly why you should make it difficult for them. You need to make them grow and learn by commit some mistakes. And if you’re lost again, I have the last tip that works for me.
Whenever I get lost, I look at my sketch of key sentences and create one for the chapter I’m work, then I make myself the questions:
1. What do I want to happen?
2. What do I need to happen to reach this point? (while I’m looking at the universal sketch)
3. What do my character want?
4. What should they do that?
5. What kind of reaction are come with that?
6. Why they need to do that?
But, well, you can also make it simple by ask yourself “if I write this right now, will I be able to reach the final of my story without going insane?”
If the answer is “no”, then write it.
I do hope that this akward guide help you to reach whatever you want to reach with your story and I would be happy to read yours <3
