Beginning, Middle and End

[HankDolworth]

I'm of the mind that a good story should have all three.

Being a long time reader, first time writer, I finally had an idea that I couldn't quiet and I started to write.

My idea had a story arc, and I quickly found a way to start the story.

I used an actual experience of mine, and modified it with the germ of the broader arc. If you read my story (The Designer Ch. 01), the first encounter with the girl in the hallway actually happened, though without the magical mind control powers. It's been embellished a bit, but that story has been in my brain since I was in college. I kept it to myself, my own personal Penthouse Forums letter.

I've been chewing on the story, allowing the arc to generate, tossing in some foreshadowing and connecting the chapters together, but I don't want this to be a never-ending story. It needs to have an ending.

So last night I did some brain storming, writing down ideas about arc, decisions, consequences, possible directions. Following those ideas, I had an inspiration and I wrote what could be the final chapter and saved it in my notes. My plan is to now write towards that ending, allowing the story to flow along an undetermined path. Like Lewis & Clark eventually reaching the Pacific.

Knowing the ending, I think helps.

I'm curious how other authors use as a process to write a story longer than a single chapter.

How do you approach it?

 

[lazyhobo]

I'm of the mind that a good story should have all three.

Being a long time reader, first time writer, I finally had an idea that I couldn't quiet and I started to write.

My idea had a story arc, and I quickly found a way to start the story.

I used an actual experience of mine, and modified it with the germ of the broader arc. If you read my story (The Designer Ch. 01), the first encounter with the girl in the hallway actually happened, though without the magical mind control powers. It's been embellished a bit, but that story has been in my brain since I was in college. I kept it to myself, my own personal Penthouse Forums letter.

I've been chewing on the story, allowing the arc to generate, tossing in some foreshadowing and connecting the chapters together, but I don't want this to be a never-ending story. It needs to have an ending.

So last night I did some brain storming, writing down ideas about arc, decisions, consequences, possible directions. Following those ideas, I had an inspiration and I wrote what could be the final chapter and saved it in my notes. My plan is to now write towards that ending, allowing the story to flow along an undetermined path. Like Lewis & Clark eventually reaching the Pacific.

Knowing the ending, I think helps.

I'm curious how other authors use as a process to write a story longer than a single chapter.

How do you approach it?

My personal approach when I used to write, was I had sort of an out line, of things that I wanted to happen, I needed to know how it would end and start and have a key on the details between.

Another real life friend of mine, did the approach where he wrote what came to mind, no real planning except possibly an ending, but he just wrote it as it went on.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

With the exception of one story that began as an open-ended collection of adventures without much of an arc, but later morphed into a story with a beginning, middle, and surprise ending, all of my stories start with a seed. The seed can be anything--a situation, an event, a concept, a relationship, a character, to name a few. That seed is allowed to germinate and grow, and only when I have worked out the entire arc--beginning, middle and ending--do I sit down and start writing. Sometimes the story branches off in ways unintended, but for the most part I know exactly where it is going before I type the first page.

 

[cherylashi26]

I have quite a linear mind, so it tends to go start-to-finish for me, then several days/weeks of editing.

 

[loquere]

I have quite a linear mind, so it tends to go start-to-finish for me, then several days/weeks of editing.

I'm the same way. I plan everything out in my mind. The story I just submitted was all in my head as it appeared. I always obses over details though. I do reserach and structure it over and over in my mind. Once it took me a year to write a story going through three drafts, researching blah blah. it was this one (http://www.literotica.com/s/the-wrong-thing-to-do-ch-02.) It was my second story published here. I however have started jotting down epiphanies on a master plan. I go through drafts and sometime kill a story alltogether some time after 3000-4000 words.

 

[oggbashan]

I wrote a How-To on how to plot flash fiction, mainly for fifty-word stories but the principles work for 100-word stories too.

 

[sunandshadow]

I used to just start writing, which usually resulted in me writing a wandering mess that stalled out due to being goalless and having resolved the initial conflict. These days I use a variation on the snowflake method to write a synopsis. But, I haven't actually written a full story from one of those synopses yet; just not as interested in writing and motivated as I was years ago. Still, I think the iterative synopsis is a brilliant invention.

 

[desertslave]

When I have a story, it mostly gets birthed all at once, and my job is to add the details and make it coherent for readers. I can't seem to make a story happen at will, which is why I sucked in creative writing classes.

 

[callmeismael]

Writing long fiction is a beast. I think the first rule is to be flexible. You can say 'these are the steps I'm going to go through to write this,' but it's more of a negotiation process. The longer your story is, the more complex it's going to be (typically). And the more complex it is, the more unique your writing approach is going to be. I think writing tends to be a bit of a negotiation between the writer and the story (and since the story doesn't exist at the beginning, it's a very tricky negotiation).

That said, I can tell you a few things that work for me:
1: Figure out what it is you want to write. How you want it to end is important, but not as important as what you want the reader to take away from it.
2: Mind-map the fuck out of it. Mind map your characters, your themes, your plot elements, your motifs, and link them all together. If you do it right, it'll help you reveal where the real conflict is. It'll also help you with step 4.
3: Write some scenes. Don't leave it too late to actually start writing. Start with some scenes that you're excited about, or that are really important. Just remember that you'll probably end up rewriting these.
4: Figure out your arcs. If you're writing long fiction, there's almost never just one arc. If you plot out the rising and falling action of all your arcs, it should look like a pretty drawing of waves. Everything overlaps, you don't get a lot of arcs ending at the same time. Once you figure out your arcs, you can plot these out scene by scene (But remember, most scenes involve multiple arcs, affecting them in different ways). If you're writing something non-linear, this step can be absolutely nightmarish.
5: Start writing beginning to end. When you get stuck (and unless you happen to be absolutely brilliant, you will at some point), return to step 1: what's important to you about what you're writing. Return to your mind-maps: are you sure you understand how these things relate? Feel free to update your mindmaps. Check your arcs. They'll change as you write as well. Everything needs to be fluid, except for what you're trying to achieve. That should stay the same.
6: Edit, arc by arc. For example, if there are a number of conversations between two characters throughout the manuscript that relate to a specific thread (such as their evolving relationship), I'll read all of those scenes in sequence, to make sure they make sense. Does everything a character says fit in line with previous conversations? It's a lot easier to take care of these issues this way than reading a 100,000 word manuscript beginning to end. Not as much of an issue for novella-length stuff, for example, but still useful.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There are many ways to write a story, and you gotta find the way that suits you best. And you discover THAT by trying lotsa things till you have a complete skill-set of your own.

I usta preach the Gospel of Saint Outline but discovered that what really matters is the entertainment value of each scene. And a scene is nuthin but a small story that keeps the reader tuned in and flipping pages.

And when I'm stumped I toss a new scene into the mix, and I dont mind if it has nuthin to do with the story so far, cuz it may down the road. It only matters that the new scene be entertaining.

 

[PayDay]

Knowing the ending, I think helps.

Agreed.

I'm curious how other authors use as a process to write a story longer than a single chapter.

How do you approach it?

The same as you, methinks. Find or know an ending, write extra chapters if you have to.