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How do you start?

  
 
fabi
15:29 / 27.01.06
......I was advised to move this in Creation. So it´s there.....
How do you start your writting? I need to do a project for my Creative Writting class, so I´d like to know what do you guys do when you start writting? Do you have a special habbit, that you always do?... Do you know in advance what is gonna happened? Do you make a plan? Do you use some start up phrases?... Thanks guys
 
 
Fell
17:02 / 27.01.06
I usually start with the moral, or something that comes close to it, or I'll replace that with situations that will bring about the garnering of wisdom in the readership or audience. That can be an emotional wisdom, or knowledge, or experience as gleamed through the eyes of the protagonist.

From there, I can figure out who my target readership is and ascribe a series of events that will strengthen the overall "tone" of the story and colour it with characters and events that will build up the journey from the start, where the character is generally related to the reader. From there, I know where the character needs to end up to execute the point of the story to the readership. Everything between is going to be where the art of the execution comes in, characters, locations, dialogue, lingo, events, which I often rate on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being events that the protagonist can easily deal with as they've the experience and knowledge — wisdom — to do so. 10 is something so alien to them that chances are they'd die or go mad in the process, such as issues dealing with paradigm shifting, unknown cultures, or situations totally outside of their grasp.

Building a hierarchy of traumatic situations, strife, will allow you to build up the tender by which you launch the story and gauge how much metamorphosis the character(s) will go through, depending on the success of overcoming different difficulties.

There are so many elements to a good story, but I believe sharing the fortune of knowledge and perhaps even inspiring experience in the reader's is priority (in my work, at least).
 
 
ShadowSax
19:30 / 27.01.06
the best way for me to start something is to constantly keep a notebook, just always doodling with words. eventually something will strike me and i'll go from there.

i usually find it difficult to start with a theme or moral. rather, those (for me) build from the story, the characters. the most common start for me is probably a sketch of setting, some place or some event, and then usually a character will spring from it. i find inspiration in viewing things, viewing scenes or events. if a character comes to mind, i'll insert him or her into the setting.

but usually it's best to just start. i know it sounds simplistic, and it is, but i've found it to be very useful. just start writing. if you go in thinking that in order to start you need to have a character, you're going to get stuck, because you'll have to force yourself into a very strict idea of what you have to write. instead, just let it come. start with the first sentence that pops into your head. then another. you may end up with 20 sentences that dont relate to one another, but eventually you'll get into a pattern, a thought plan, an idea, and it will start to take shape. like i said before, sketching is a good way to start. open up the notebook and write a meditation on the train or at the desk or in the can. or go to a mall or a busy venue with lots of people milling about, and just start describing it. the themes and ideas you're interested in will come to the surface just because you're sketching from your own point of view.
 
 
buttergun
19:46 / 27.01.06
What's worked for me is to first keep an "outline," in which I write down all the ideas that come to me for the book, regardless of chronology. I've found that this method really helps inspire more ideas -- as you write down the ideas you've already gotten, new ones spring from them.

Then, once I've gotten a pretty big file and the book's structure has mostly taken shape in my head, I start up a new file -- something like "(book title) Chapter-By-Chapter." I then cut and paste the ideas from the previous outline into this new one, arranging them into order, and cutting out ideas I've since discarded. From there you have a pretty stable outline that features all of your ideas for the book, which you can refer to when writing the novel itself.

Pretty belabored, but I've found it useful.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
19:50 / 27.01.06
Mods, move this to creation maybe? It'll pick up more traffic there.
 
 
fabi
20:29 / 27.01.06
Thanks LR, I´ve moved it to creation.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
08:55 / 28.01.06
Fell;

If you don't mind me asking, are you published? I mean in 'meatspace' really.

I'll admit to being somewhat morbidly interested in your ideas about a moral, the gaining of wisdom and so on, and how they relate to one's 'art.' It's just that they remind of something that Mark E Smith once said, to the effect that he could 'write a f***ing novel on the back of a stamp' - If you can boil the thing down to a simple life lesson, why bother with the padding?

(Being a bit disingenuous here, I realise, but starting with 'a moral' seems an odd way to go.)
 
 
Jack Fear
13:58 / 28.01.06
Mm. I must agree. I'm with Frank Capra: "If you want to send a message, try Western Union." If your primary aim to convey a moral, your story is probably going to come off as stiff or contrived. But if you concentrate on just telling a good story, the theme will emerge organically.
 
 
Whisky Priestess
21:18 / 28.01.06
Thirding that. Although I wondered as I read Fell's description whether ze was expressing something like "I decide what I want to say, and then decide how best to say it", which makes more sense to me as a way to start.

Like (to be totally simplistic) I might decide I wanted to say that War Is Bad, and then work out that the character through whom this would be best expressed would be a disillusioned soldier at the front, or a nurse tending the wounded in a field hospital ... etc.

However, this isn't how I normally go about it. What I usually do is sit down with a coffee and smoke a fag. This is not an idea-generating technique per se, but if I have nothing to read or do during that ten minutes, it means I can just let my mind wander and think in a bit more detail about story ideas that idly occur to me.

I also have a notebook and pen with me at almost all times: this way I can write down whatever strikes me as a fun thing (character, bit of dialogue, situation, idea, place) and then expand on it later, when I have the time to actually sit down and write. Rarely do inspiration and opportunity to explore that inspiration coincide.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
05:53 / 29.01.06
Likewise, I have dozens of little .txt files on my desktop where I note down sudden jabs of ideas that come whilst in the middle of essays.

A good thing to note about starting a piece of prose is that it's often best to just steam into it. Don't worry about getting the best possible opening, you can always come back to it. Same with bits where you can't quite think of a word or phrase to use, just put brackets round a simple description of what's happening, move on and come back to it later. The idea is to get something down on paper, after which you can fiddle away to your heart's content. As well, the best opening to the piece might not reveal itself until you know what the piece is.

As it happens, I'm on a Creative Writing course, and a phrase I often say to people when they're talking about their work is "Don't suck up till you fuck up". It can be applied to a lot of situations.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
05:58 / 29.01.06
Another thing. You may well find that writing lots of detailed maps and plans or drawing pictures of your characters helps the piece along. On the other hand, you may not. It may well be too restricting, too stable. If you do this a lot, try not doing it; if you don't do it, try doing it. The important thing is to Break The Rut.
 
 
Whisky Priestess
22:41 / 29.01.06
Legba: what course are you on? And how is it? My mate is thinking about doing one next year and I can only give him the UEA perspective, but I hear Bath Spa, Manchester and Glasgow are good too.
 
 
autran
13:04 / 31.01.06
Frank Capra: "If you want to send a message, try Western Union."

Funny, Sam Goldwyn said the same thing: "Messages are for Western Union."

I wonder which of them said it first?
 
 
Jack Fear
13:56 / 31.01.06
Well, to quote Yogi Berra, "I didn't really say half the things I said."

At least, they say he said that.
 
 
Fell
20:49 / 31.01.06
Alex,

It's sort of weird how I approach my writing. I did some studying in screenwriting during summer workshops for the National Screen Institute of Canada, but no I am not a writer by trade. I am a graphic designer with a background in brand and an earnest adoration of information architecture.

Combine that with the guest-lectures I give at the University of Alberta on contemporary occultism and the use of the personal monomyth as alchemical transformation of the soul, you've got one peculiar approach to structuring a story.

The moral needs to be wrapped, nay, designed to appeal to a certain audience. The lesson is about transformation — if following what I laid down there, as opposed to more artistic endeavours experimenting with the literary form. So if you can create a relative protagonist, someone the reader will relate to (ie, Bilbo Baggins, Peter Parker, Luke Skywalker), then you can introduce events that the reader may understand as they travel with the character. I guess a good example was Darth Vader before and after the prequels. Before, you only knew and sympathised with Luke and his journey. You were with him through the good times and the bad. Vader was just this baddass mofo that everyone (as kids, I presume) loved to hate. You had no idea how he became who he is.

(Same with Hitler, I suppose…)

But with the prequels, we now see Vader for the cry-baby, tinkerbell, whiny shithead that he is. I would like to add, for prosperity's sake, that Lucas can suck an ass after sacrificing the character to sell more merchandise.

But now we know where Vader comes from, so his story is now relative to our perspective. The knowledge of his mystery, in fact, disempowers him in our mind.

Sorta like what happened to the Borg in Star Trek. Their first appearance was a radical departure for what fans were used to: new, fresh, dark, dangerous. But then they milked it. We got Hugh or whatever its name was. By the time the movie premièred, we were no longer as in awe or afraid of the Borg. In fact, Hugh made them cheesy and too human for us. That is the sign of powerful writing (their introduction and use for a few episodes) and poor writing (taming the beast; ie, Darth Vader = Anakin, Borg = Hugh, Seven of Nine).

I wrote fabi a msg that summed up some of my stuff, perhaps it can get posted here. Unfortunately, it appears Barbelith has no outbox for me to check my past messages.

I would very much like to get back into screenwriting, as I've been collecting philosophies and engineering characters and their dispositions in my head for the past years, which all fall into a series of three stories I'd like to see realised. Perhaps in four or five years; especially with digitial filmmaking as affordable as it is nowadays!

Books to check out:

Tier One:

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
by Robert McKee

The Writer's Journey, Second Edition : Mythic Structure for Writers
by Christopher Vogler

Tier Two:

Study C. G. Jung; works such as Man and His Symbols, Man's Search for Meaning, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, et cetera.

Joseph Cambell, obviusly, but also try less mainstream works such as Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation.

Tier Three:

Here you may begin to explore and understand the more esoteric power of story and myth as a transformative tool. The religio-philosophy of Gnosticism is also worth looking into.

Look into P. D. Ouspensky, such as his In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching and perhaps The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution. Then perhaps from those, look into G. I. Gurdjieff, his teacher.

Also research and learn the allegory and symbolism behind the tarot, as it reflects the human monomyth.
 
 
Fell
21:07 / 31.01.06
It's just that they remind of something that Mark E Smith once said, to the effect that he could 'write a f***ing novel on the back of a stamp' - If you can boil the thing down to a simple life lesson, why bother with the padding?

(Being a bit disingenuous here, I realise, but starting with 'a moral' seems an odd way to go.)

Maybe I don't mean moral in the traditional sense, but a philosophical lesson or allegory of growth and metamorphosis. If you can gauge the direction you want to take the audience or readership, any experience that the character goes through should be satisfyingly sympathetic to allow almost anyone to relate (even just a bit). Last year's film, Crash, is a good example.

If you can relate to the protagonist, then you can "be with them" as they enter into an alien environment, such as another world, city, culture, clique, a girl going into the boy's bathroom or vice versa, et cetera.

However, Japanese storytelling, for example, differs in that the journey is the story, and in traditionally Japanese myth the end is not as important. The Japanese concept of iki is about an appreciation of the details, the push-pull of the journey, and examining the details that come of the adventure; an elegant, clean, mastered embrace of the chaos that is commonly known as the "Underworld" in the monomyth, or "The Dark Night of the Soul" as put forth by Saint John of the Cross.

The so-called "padding" of the story is where one can put their art and let their creativity run wild. The structure of the story, however, does in fact have a metaphyiscal structure that affects the reader. I love to encourage everyone to pursue it, but realise that writing without a foreknowledge of the structure of myth and the sympathy of the reader with the characters (psychology?, spirituality?, occult?, poetry?) is like drafting the floorplan to a house without having any experience in architecture.

The three tools you have to use are all forms of strife:

Subjective Strife (ie, David Cronenberg's Spider)

Interpersonal Strife (most stories, romances, etc)

Man vs Nature or Society (Alive)

And interestingly, there is another metaphysical level beyond that which you stumble upon in occultism dealing with Man vs God, which is the ultimate goal of the magus. Those concepts can be touched on in Tier Three in the above post.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
01:25 / 01.02.06
Legba: what course are you on? And how is it? My mate is thinking about doing one next year and I can only give him the UEA perspective, but I hear Bath Spa, Manchester and Glasgow are good too.

Manchester! Manchester Metropolitan University, specifically, because you've got Andrew Biswell teaching it (who recently wrote a brilliant Anthony Burgess biography, in fact, probably the best) and Michael Schmidt, founder of the Manchester Writing School, and writer of innumerable and grand works on the subject. I'd easily reccomend it, because as well as the excellent course you've got the whole Manchester writing scene, and the creative/artistic scene in general, which is a bit like Shoreditch would be if it was done right.

Manchester! I can't stress this enough. Plus your mate has ready made friends in the shape of me and and my krazy krew.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
01:28 / 01.02.06
(If you want more specific information feel free to PM me)
 
 
Sax
09:38 / 01.02.06
//offtopic// - Legba, have you seen a magazine around Oxford Road parts called All Saints, No Sinners, perchance? I believe it's funded by the joint Unis and stuff.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
16:52 / 01.02.06
Hmm, can't say I have. Are you sure it's not had a name change?
 
  
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