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[Mistershine.]

If so, what's your process for getting an idea out of your head and onto paper? I have a few different ideas for screenplays that have been bouncing around the old noggin for a while and have put the basic outline down but get almost overwhelmed when I try to move beyond that.

Do you sort out major plot points first and then fill in the parts in between or do you just go at it and drop in plot points as they arrive?

The likelihood of anyone other than me ever reading anything I write is very low, this is more of a personal goal for the self satisfaction of saying "I did this".

Any advice you can give me would be great. Even if you don't have any I'd be interested in hearing from you about what you've written.

 

[ValiantTraveler]

I'm a heavy outliner, I won't start writing until I make sure the whole story makes sense. I try my best to fill in all the plot point beforehand.

While outlining I try to figure out the characters, their arcs, and the overall themes of the story. Character, plot, and themes must be strongly intertwined.

Try to find a balance between character and plot. The main characters should be interesting even outside the plot and the plot should be intriguing and include a few unexpected turns.

Each major character should have a goal, a motivation for that goal, an inner conflict, an arc, and relationships with other characters. Quirks here and there are fun but they don't make an interesting character by themselves. Character arcs should be linked to the theme(s) you're going with.

It's not uncommon to feel overwhelmed in the early stages, I recommend you break down your outline into scenes, each with its own short outline. When you know exactly what happens in every scene, you'll find writing a lot more approachable. Of course you may change the story as you go but having a roadmap in the form of an outline makes the endeavor less daunting.

While outlining be sure to elevate the tention, scale and stakes as the climax approaches.

Make sure to have a few "standout" scenes as well. Either funny, tense, emotional or epic. Think of your favorite scenes from movies. Something crazy awesome like Ripley vs the Queen Alien or Rambo vs a freaking army. It could also be something more down-to-earth like the "how do you like them apples" or "It's not your fault" scenes from Good Will Hunting.

Lastly, even if no one reads what you write, the biggest failure imo is not bringing your ideas onto the paper (or screen). It's doesn't even matter whether they suck or not. You never know where a story might take you.

 

[Spaceman292]

Get all your shit down as fast as possible without thinking. Literally shit all over a piece of paper. Leave it for a day then come back and start molding it into something understandable.

 

[ROMhack]

Think in scenes, then try to link them together. I'm not great at it myself but linking them is much easier than trying to begin and end up somewhere.

Oftentimes it's easier to imagine something in the middle (in media res) and creatively work out what happened before and after.

A bit like how Brap was apprehended by the police close to his home last Sunday, around 7pm. The cops thrust him onto the hood of his car, his mask only antagonizing the situation even though his intention was good (he is a fine citizen after all). He'd just come back from the store to get some medication for his sick mother - herself suffering from a cold, which old Brap thought might develop into something more serious.

It wasn't his fault he forgot to wear pants when he jumped in his car and headed straight out. Nor was it his fault when, upon entering the store, he happened to bump into a young girl carrying an ice cream, one of those strange multicolored concoctions. How could he even think for one moment that her mother would scream out loud, thinking the poor Brap was trying to take advantage of this young girl's innocence? The startled Brap knew he'd been set-up and he jumped straight back into his car and headed home. The police, of course, were alerted and tailed him for several blocks.

He spent three fucking hours at the station, pant-less and sweating. Thinking all the time how great it'd be if he'd just stayed inside and spent time chatting to his friends on his favorite videogame forum. When he FINALLY got home, medicine-less, his mother, who was feeling a lot better suddenly, chastised him. Where'd he been all this time? Why wasn't he wearing pants? And where'd his mask go? That no good Brap must have been up to all kinds of shenanigans for he had set precedence despite being a reformed character after Evilore gave him the old ban stick.

The result of this episode? He spent the next three weeks grounded, hatching up his master plan to take control of the world (for which he is still working to accomplish).

And thus ends the sad tale of Brap.

 

[Airola]

I'm terrible at finishing anything.

I have finished only one over 100 page long screenplay, and that happened because I was at a film school back then and we had a script course and I had to finish the script to pass the course.

I have tons of ideas and tons of unfinished scripts and I've become to realize that unless I start to force some work ethics to my mind I will never get anything done. The matter of fact is that I'm quick to give up as soon as coming up with stuff starts to feel like work. What I should do is to do it like Stephen King who has said that his work ethics require him to write at least 10 pages of stuff every single day, no matter how bad the end result is. If nothing good comes up to your mind, you write whatever is needed to fill those 10 daily pages. But I'm a lazy bastard and will probably never be able to do that.

Whenever I write, my method is to write scenes from here and there and leave spaces in between them to fill them later. Sometimes I have written the beginning and the end. Sometimes I don't know how it begins and how it ends but I know some of the things that happen in the middle, and the story starts to slowly fill that way.

My way of coping with seeing how I don't seem to be able to finish any of them is that I think it's good to have a lot of unfinished works so there are a lot of options to work with whenever I feel inspired enough, and maybe one day one or two of those will end up getting finished. I don't really write down things beforehand. I used to do that too back in the day but now I'm too lazy for it, and I kinda just think that if an idea stays long enough in my head, then that's an idea to write into a scene one day. If I forget the idea, then it wasn't good enough anyway. But then again, I remember that I've had some really exciting ideas but I forgot them and now I just remember I had the idea but don't know what the idea was, so not writing the ideas down isn't really a good thing.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Just write out the "dialogue" you're having in your head. Record yourself on your smartphone if you prefer verbal. Write scenes and write descriptions of the characters. Write write write. Your habit will carry you forward. If you "wait for inspiration" you will wait forever.

Writers condense a ton of content, down down down into their final product. A surefire way to finish a story is to start with an asteroid of content and carve it down to a cathedral of perfection.

 

[Birdo]

The easiest way is to think about the basic three act structure.

1. Set Up
2. Confrontation
3. Resolution

Once you have an idea that fits those acts, you can fill in the blanks.

 

[Tesseract]

subbed, always looking to improve

i'm absolutely terrible, only ever dabble with dev related shit here and there

i think you have to write every day, there's no accounting for experience and effort

 

[Nymphae]

Get all your shit down as fast as possible without thinking. Literally shit all over a piece of paper. Leave it for a day then come back and start molding it into something understandable.

 

[Makoto-Yuki]

Yes, me.

"Upon yonder hill, there stood a dookit... it's no there now, because someone took it!"

 

[Mistershine.]

Thanks for the replies chaps. I think I have a plan to be going on with. As I'm currently in the middle of Marie Kondo-ing the shit out of my house I've decided to make a space and set up a little writing station and try and get a bit done every day. I'll post some updates here as I get stuff done, and when I sell my first blockbuster I'll spring for some gold memberships.

 

[DrJohnGalt]

I'm one of those people that has so many ideas I can't get them all written down before they're forgotten, so what I've done the past few years is to record them to audio (I've got a mini recorder that I carry around with me so I don't need to use my phone). That way I can just get all my main points recorded and maybe shotgun other ideas or describe scenes or dialogue while I'm thinking out loud.

As for the how, I tend to have a few major plot points on the map from start to finish and I'll fill in the details from there. Coming from a D&D background I also love making characters and designing worlds (but I admittedly often get caught up in that and not in writing the story itself). When I've got a rough idea of the big scenes that will take me to the end I start filling in the smaller scenes between, and when those are done I'll flesh out the rest.

Never be afraid to change your course mid-story. Sometimes I see a plot hole that wouldn't work and have to go back. Sometimes I just grow to hate a character or scene or something and try to rework it into something better.

There isn't one right way to do it. I've read a lot of author autobiographies and every one seems to have a way that works for them (and interestingly enough, many of the commercially successful authors have a completely different approach than you'd find in conventional books or instructions. But I'd suggest also checking out mainstream writer's guides because even tho not everything will work for you, you may see an idea you haven't thought of before.

 

[Mistershine.]

One more question, with regards to screenplays rather than books, when creating a character do you create a "blank" or do you see an actor/actress and create around them?

 

[Happosai]

If so, what's your process for getting an idea out of your head and onto paper? I have a few different ideas for screenplays that have been bouncing around the old noggin for a while and have put the basic outline down but get almost overwhelmed when I try to move beyond that.

Do you sort out major plot points first and then fill in the parts in between or do you just go at it and drop in plot points as they arrive?

The likelihood of anyone other than me ever reading anything I write is very low, this is more of a personal goal for the self satisfaction of saying "I did this".

Any advice you can give me would be great. Even if you don't have any I'd be interested in hearing from you about what you've written.

I have three unfinished stories including a prequel I wrote for the 1979 Alien movie. The Alien prequel is a about the longest and most researched thing I've ever written. The reason I never final drafted it was due to the limited audience it may have. The story is character/sci-fi environmentally based and does not include the Alien. It's written based on the events leading up-to.

I also tend to write alternative endings for anime or manga series for my wife (I do the same for movies and books where I didn't like the original author's ending). These are written more like novellas than fan-fictions.

It's all footed from storytelling which was something I picked up as a kid. I was a farm kid who lived on a grain farm from the mid-80's-mid 2000's. Rural Illinois, no friends, surrounded by nothing much. I had few video games as a kid and made the stories up and got into art and music out of boredom. Can't believe I'm now living in a city of 5-million + in South Central Mexico.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

Honestly I do best when I dream of something and immediately note it down when waking up...nowadays with my insomnia and technology that usually ends up on my phone (RIP) note pad...later I try to recall more of the emotions and flesh it out

Otherwise I find setting aside a time to just write doesn’t really work. I need to be BS’ing with friends and riffing off ideas for anything of substance to arrive. Work time is work, reading clinical data and shit, doesn’t really give me any kind of inspiration if it’s too structured. I need some weird stream of consciousness naturalness for anything of value to come out or it feels too fake to me. Refinement can come later, but starting with structure leads me to nothing.

 

[bitbydeath]

I started writing my first novel two years ago. I like your mentality of writing it for you because that is important if you want to last the distance.

My novel quickly developed because the story kept growing and I’ve now outlined 5 novels which is great to do up front cause I can setup things now that won’t occur until many books later.

Sometimes I get distracted on other topics but must block them out as I need to hold focus on these for now and don’t want to get attached to anything else.

My process was to outline the main high level story points first and then I would develop character arcs and relationships and finally I would outline every single chapter of the first novel. Stating exactly what occurs within that chapter before actually writing it.

I’m on my second draft of my first novel and aim to have it completed by next year. The second is already outlined on a per chapter basis just waiting until the first is out if the way.

On drafts, I do a rough draft first and it is most certainly rough but the story is out and in the page. The second draft is all about making everything read off the page well and of course things sometimes change as natural developments occur. The third and final will be a re-read and me jotting down in point the main conversations and things that occurred to be sure I haven’t repeated myself somewhere or made an unexpected development that changes halfway through.

The main thing is to write for yourself, while I’m bias and think my story is incredibly unique and one of the best ever told theirs always the chance others won’t see it that way. Also it is really exciting when something you’ve been planning for so long in your head comes down on paper.

Good luck OP

 

[Reptars Revenge]

Highest score in the state on narrative writing in third grade. All down hill from there.

 

[Master Of Illusion]

Absolutely know what you don't want to do.

From there it's a process of elimination.

 

[mekes]

<mAyB3>

 

[teezzy]

not a creative writer, but i do play with video etc.

i like notating any visuals that come to my mind and speak to me, writing them down, and doing my best to connect the dots

always get something interesting as a result. but yeah shit all over paper, works for me

 

[V2Tommy]

Get all your shit down as fast as possible without thinking. Literally shit all over a piece of paper. Leave it for a day then come back and start molding it into something understandable.

I’m worried that you’re a writer and say things like “literally shit all over a piece of paper.”

 

[Ash Sparrow]

Thread has a little of everything I used. My writing started from a dream I had. But I also had a question. Everyone who had ever told me they were writing a book never finished. So I had to answer the question of why by writing something myself. I believe the answer is a wall, writers block that almost everyone hits. I think if you can get over that wall skys the limit. So I hit a writers block, I was just stuck. But then I had to make a tough choice. I was writing a book of storys, the story that started the book came from the dream I had. I made the choice to drop that story out of the book, when I did everything just came together. That story was my writers block. I think it may be the best story, but I couldn't make it work at that time.

TLDR: If you get to something you cant make work, dont force it, pack it up for later.

 

[MaestroMike]

I think there was a writer named gary whitta that used to post here and he wrote the screenplay for book of eli lol

 

[BadBurger]

I had one work adapted to a short film, yes. It happened by happy accident: someone saw a creative writing post of mine on Reddit, asked if I had anything else, I shared a few short stories and bam - something like $750 exchanged hands (into my hands), some tax legal and tax forms were signed, and my story was turned into a 15 min movie. It involved the story of a clumsy hacker who got in over his head in something in the early 2000's. I still write creatively but it's mostly just for enjoyment or for sharing on social media. I'm not trying to become a writer, I have a day job, but if I ever had a book published that would of course be cool. I have been trying to finish a story involving a zombie plague of sorts, but I can't seem to bring it together and I feel like most of it is poor anyways.

How do I formulate a story? I suppose I do a rough outline in my head. I know how I want a story to begin and end. But it evolves as I write it. Like, perhaps I know I want the story to start with a man meeting a woman and they fall in love - so he thinks. It will end with him discovering that she is actually a thousand year old witch or sorts who every few decades transfers her consciousness into that of a toddler so she can keep on living forever as a young woman, and there are other still living, though aged, men who she has seduced over the decades that help her. So I have my rough start and finish. Now it's time to fill in the blanks. That's also another short story I sold but nothing ever came of it. It was never published or anything, some company just bought the rights.

My advice would be to take the advice of actual successful writers like Stephen King. He may even answer your question on Twitter or Good Reads.

 

[Chromata]

I write novellas and poems. My writing process is a little chaotic. I start off with a well defined "spirit" which is either a collection of story defining scenes in my head or a strong feeling I want to convey.

I explore that with music and see where it leads. Sometimes the writings are in shattered fragments which I save as keepsake, other times they loosely piece together like a mosaic. If they piece together, then I draw a (very) rough outline of the beats I want to hit and overall structure.

Then I work inside out, writing off passion rather than scene/order (so I'll just write what I feel strongest about at that moment). I find that if I do it the other way around, I compromise the soul of the story and get tunnel vision. I take all these different pieces and form them together like playdough with the general structure I made from the start.

That gives the base story and rough outline. From there I go through the usual editing/iteration, sometimes resulting in a completely different structure.

Not sure if that's helpful but in any case that's how I write . I love writing really weird and unconventional stories like Death Stranding or Memento (story told backwards).

 

[Tesseract]

I think there was a writer named gary whitta that used to post here and he wrote the screenplay for book of eli lol

good movie, used to be a cool guy

dunno if he's got the mind virus or not, haven't scrubbed

 

[Elcid]

I'm a heavy outliner, I won't start writing until I make sure the whole story makes sense. I try my best to fill in all the plot point beforehand.

While outlining I try to figure out the characters, their arcs, and the overall themes of the story. Character, plot, and themes must be strongly intertwined.

Try to find a balance between character and plot. The main characters should be interesting even outside the plot and the plot should be intriguing and include a few unexpected turns.

Each major character should have a goal, a motivation for that goal, an inner conflict, an arc, and relationships with other characters. Quirks here and there are fun but they don't make an interesting character by themselves. Character arcs should be linked to the theme(s) you're going with.

It's not uncommon to feel overwhelmed in the early stages, I recommend you break down your outline into scenes, each with its own short outline. When you know exactly what happens in every scene, you'll find writing a lot more approachable. Of course you may change the story as you go but having a roadmap in the form of an outline makes the endeavor less daunting.

While outlining be sure to elevate the tention, scale and stakes as the climax approaches.

Make sure to have a few "standout" scenes as well. Either funny, tense, emotional or epic. Think of your favorite scenes from movies. Something crazy awesome like Ripley vs the Queen Alien or Rambo vs an freaking army. It could also be something more down-to-earth like the "how do you like them apples" or "It's not your fault" scenes from Good Will Hunting.

Lastly, even if no one writes what you read, the biggest failure imo is not bringing your ideas onto the paper (or screen). It's doesn't even matter whether they suck or not. You never know where a story might take you.

Get all your shit down as fast as possible without thinking. Literally shit all over a piece of paper. Leave it for a day then come back and start molding it into something understandable.

Two great pieces of advice here. Outlining and shitting on paper. Sounds like a joke but it's not. I have a 80k word novel sitting next to me that I wrote 2 years ago, I just haven't proofread it.

 

[Jubenhimer]

I consider myself an amateur graphic novel writer. My Profile pic is a piece of concept art from from a comic I'm working on with a friend of mine. Usually when I come up with an idea for a story. I write a basic synopsis down on paper detailing the premise and characters. Then, if I feel like it, flesh that out with various character profiles and scripts to get a feel for overall story.

 

[haxan7]

My best creative writing exercises always ended in an ambiguous situation where my protagonist may or may not have committed suicide

 

[Spaceman292]

I’m worried that you’re a writer and say things like “literally shit all over a piece of paper.”

I know what I wrote.