Hero, villain, quest...?

For me one of the main characters has been with me since I was in elementary school. He is the grown up version of a kid in a make-believe game my sister and I used to play. So definitely the hero for me. The other main character only came to me last year and yet I knew he was perfect for the story. I try and look back on my childhood imagination because I feel like that's when it was the most limitless.

Hope this helps!

For me it's usually just a random scene that means nothing but has potential to be intriguing. From there I get taken over with a feverish passion of curiosity. I have to know what happened before or after that scene. But most of all, I have to know what element makes that plot unique. I have to find something crazy that I can tear apart. Once I find that, I start getting the characters and the plot down.

Of course, I write mostly Speculative fiction

For me, ideas don't come a dime a dozen. Maybe one a year if I'm lucky. Just keep daydreaming. Something will come to you.

With the WiP I'm editing now, it...wasn't really any of those things at first. It was just "I want to write a magical girl story!" Then I pondered what angle I could go for, since I wasn't sure on going with the traditional "girls discover magic, fight baddies" formula. That eventually led me to the concept that evolved into a 90,000-word story: "magical girl after having saved the world".

And to be honest, I didn't think it'd go anywhere because I felt like a magical-girl novel wouldn't be something most people would be interested in, but I was at a point where I felt like there wasn't any point in writing anything at all if I didn't write what I wanted to. Once I started expanding on the characters, the world, the lore...it all clicked for me.

So rather than waiting for an idea that screams "the one!" to you, try exploring some concepts that pique your interest. The stories might not go anywhere, but it's still more productive than being stuck. The smallest acorn might sprout into a mighty oak of a story, if you plant it and give it a little water.

Be careful of the trap of thinking that a story started where it starts in book-form. There's a reason a lot of writers start in the middle, or at the end, or do full outlines. The first page in a final book is very rarely the first page written.

Some people, including me, do write more or less sequentially, but there's still a tonne of revision involved. Often, a lot of that involves getting the story to coalesce.

Caveat: I am unpublished, and I won't begin writing my first book (of a planned series) for another couple weeks. I don't recommend my approach for those who lose interest in something relatively quick. For me, I enjoy the environments and pieces I made. I have a lot of material to cherry pick.

I am very strong with project management and creativity. I know I wanted to create something big and I know I wanted to do it in the fantasy genre.

1. My first task was to survey the landscape. I learned all I could about fantasy characters, beasts, magic systems, and a seemingly endless list of items.
2. I learned all I could about writing novels and the business itself. There was a long period of this for me. I wanted to know what I was getting into.
3. I created pieces: loads of characters; new kinds of beasts and modifications on existing ones; 800+ spells and potions; fun lists (e.g. new food items); and so on.

From the created pieces, I had something I could work with; i.e. things that helped me create things such as setting, plot, subplots, tension/conflict, and so on. For me, it's like the 1980's cartoons, such as G.I. Joe. Each side (good and bad) had numerous characters with specializations, vehicles, and so on. I can cherry pick the most entertaining characters (human and animal) I created and put them into fun situations. I can create stories (plots and subplots) from these.

I left out a bunch of stuff, but now I have books one and two outlined; each with subplots and, I hope, great quality. I have some more odds and ends to wrap up before writing, but the entire process will take, if all goes well, exactly 1.5 years (to the day). Originally, I guesstimated 6 months. Boy was I wrong!

There were a lot of problems I never encountered before, and this is where my project management paid off. Although I didn't know how to tackle certain elements, I had experience in doing relational things. One of those was learning protagonist layers of support and lack of it. I studied the Harry Potter series to work through this. I figured out Rowling had 5 positive support layers and 5 destructive layers. I learned she worked it, so that the most powerful (level 5s) attacked levels 5s of the opposite support structure. For example, Voldemort (detriment level 5) killed Harry's parents (support level 5). At level 4, LeStrange killed off some level 4 supporting roles for Harry. Rowling had a 5:7 ratio (support layers to number of books). I adapted the ratio to my planned number of books and went on to the next challenge I struggled with. This allowed me to know who kills who and when. I learned Rowling's kill ratio off good people dying to bad characters dying. I applied the same ratio to my WIP.

For the amount of work put in, and finding creative ways to solve problems I encountered, I am surprised it only took me 1.5 years (working seven days a week, even holidays) to get to where I am. It's a huge project, but in the process of creating everything I did, I created numerous side projects. I have 30+ side projects from animal and human characters I could never use in my series, but I created during the process. I created story lines for them. One day, I will try screenwriting with these projects.

My short stories begin with a situation, but my longer works have all originated with a setting. There's not much space for world-building in shorts, so for me it's important to centre character in those from the get-go - but for some reason it's my natural process to 'locate' a novel first, then populate it with everything else. Theme often attaches fairly naturally. Characters suggest themselves often, too. Plots I find consistently most difficult, so they're usually my last consideration

I never know when a new story idea will hit. In the last week I've had the bizarre (for me) situation of coming up with two new novel ideas totally out of the blue, complete with moderately detailed synopses. And yes, both were inspired by settings - one which I've had in mind to write about for years, and the other a brand-new-to-me place that shouted an entire story at me (title included) as I drove through it.

So to answer your question 'for your last project, what came first to your mind?' - the answer is setting. Getting that locked down is essential to 'finding' the story, for me.

I start with a setting and see what themes I can extract from that setting.

I think I come first with the quest, then with the hero and the villain. And yes, I am a plotter.

I start from an intriguing situation or character, but the original idea might not make it through revisions of the story. Crucial is setting and season. I write stories that can only happen in a particular time and place. If I'm fuzzy on setting, I can't "see" the story as a whole.

I'm still unpublished, so take this for what it's worth...

To date, my most prolific writing experience has been in fanfiction. Plop me down in the worlds of: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, or Phantom of the Opera (used to be pretty big, not sure about now), and I could write thousands and thousands of words a day of pretty decent stuff that had a lot of followers.

In trying to break out into my own original stuff, I've struggled. I finally realized that in order for me to tell a story, I have to be very familiar with the world in which its set. Not just the physical setting, but the societal structure and the cultural details. I'm interested in fantasy, because fantasy worlds are what I find entertaining both to read and write, so that means I have to create everything from the ground up. For a long, long time, I just didn't think I had what it takes to do that. I couldn't imagine ever being as creative as Rowling or Martin or any other number of fantasy writers.

But somewhere along the way, my mind started connecting the issues facing our real world today with possible counterparts in a fantasy world. And I've spent years just letting these connections form and percolate. I've filled some notebooks and a lot of Google docs with ideas. Some have come and gone, but some have stuck around and evolved.

What I seem to be doing, and I really didn't realize this until I was reading this thread and thinking about my answer, is creating a fictional universe that is as realized and solid to me as those I used to write fanfiction in. To me, that's the vital ingredient that will then allow me to cut loose and write stories set in that world. And in building that world, the conflicts are just occurring naturally. The social structure, the political climate, and so forth, all create tension and conflict...just as they do in our real world. And as I'm creating these things, ideas for characters and quests pop into my head all of the time and get jotted down. I feel like once the world is fully realized, and the underlying, main dilemma plaguing that world is apparent (almost there with this right now), it'll be easy to tell any number of stories about any number of characters within the context of that world and that dilemma. But until I have those big things in place, I'm not really able to do much more than type out a few intriguing scenes here and there that may or may not even be useful in the end.

eruthford said:

I've been stuck in a state of casting about, trying to come up with a new idea for something to write about, and I want to ask, for your last project, what came first to your mind, the hero, the villain, the quest, or what?

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For me, it was 'Or what.' My first novel--the theme came to me and I wrote around (about) that theme. My critique partners said no one would read it because it wasn't exciting enough. My story had a theme all right, but was too talky, too preachy. I've done tons of revisions to make it more readable.

I started my second novel with fireworks. Explosions. A murder in chapter 1. I pantsed it, and I figured that would make it move from the get-go, and maybe it did, but at the end I sat and thought about the whole thing and realized I had completely skipped any thematic core. It was just stuff happening... to drive adrenaline.

So, I'm back to theme, and starting over on the second book as of a few weeks ago. I'm working on chapter four today. So far it isn't very exciting, no murders or explosions, but it feels like it has a heck of a lot more fiber.

Which was the problem with book one, oh well. I like fiber.

eruthford said:

With me, what I can think of is a brave incident meteorologist sets up at a summer camp in the forest to set up mobile weather stations to monitor the weather around a forest fire and recruits the campers to help her set up all the gear and the campers learn some things from the meteorologist (friend of mine is one of these meteorologist). That's the most I can think of, but then I need <adventure thing happens> and then <villain> and <crap blows up> and wow wasn't that transformative. That's the kind of stuck I'm suffering from. Maybe part of my problem is that I'm a plotter more than a pantser and I don't think of "wow wouldn't this scene be cool" and that random scene be cool and then have it turn in to a novel... I more go for a plan.

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For me, it varies - which may explain why I seldom finish anything. Sometimes it's a place or event, and then I populate it, sometimes it's a person, and how that person would get into trouble.

If I began with what you've got, first I'd have to decide whether the story is about the meteorologist or the girls. Then, is the forest fire nearby or ongoing (because if it is, it will overshadow everything else in your story).
Once you've decided that, what's the threat to the meteorological equipment? Is it kids from another camp, who don't know what it is, only that it belongs to 'the other side', and is therefore a target?
Or, is it environmentalists or loggers, who think the equipment belongs to either property developers or conservationists, who are going to 'destroy' the area?
Either way, they destroy at least some of the equipment, which has to be replaced, and the vandals have to be identified and caught, before more damage is done.

For me it's always the person - I read somewhere 'a story is about a person'. (Not a *human* mind you). So for me I start with a person in some kind of situation that entices me to know more - more about the person, more about the situation.