That was tough! Hopefully you now have a clearer idea of the "flow" of your story. Play with it, and dream with it. Capture your thoughts. I carry a notebook with me, and write down all ideas -- good, bad, or very strange. Every few days I type in my notebook entries into file categories on my computer. The purpose of these exercises is to move a story idea from a vague image to something that can be worked with for The Story Template. What is the Story Template? It is a detailed view of how a story develops from beginning to end, scene by scene, in the modern story. It is NOT a formula, but a metastructure of how stories "look." The idea for this book originated from my own frustration in constructing a novel. I found plenty of texts on POV, character development, plotline strands etc., but scanty to nonexistent instruction for how to put everything together. For me it was trial and error to write my novels, and I threw out more pages of (good) writing than I care to remember because the direction of the story seemed "wrong." I am currently developing The Story Template and hope to have it finished before too long. I'll be adding more on this site as time passes. Thanks so much for taking a look. I hope it helped! |
