Brewing stories

[NoJo]

For tea, four minutes is considered the ideal brewing time. Less than that, and it comes out weak and insipid. Too long, and it's bitter and stewed.

How long should a story brew in your mind before you start to write?

 

[empty_coffee_cup]

I think every story has a different percolation period, could be hours, could be months. They accumulate ideas and weight to a point at which they tip over from being some fragment to being some kind of story. If you pull them out before that then they run the risk of just being "a bunch of stuff happening". I think I have a tendency to rush off half-cocked as far as that's concerned.

For argument's sake though, I'll say once the first seeds have been planted - two days of brewing before I can start typing.

 

[evanslily]

I think every story has a different percolation period, could be hours, could be months. They accumulate ideas and weight to a point at which they tip over from being some fragment to being some kind of story. If you pull them out before that then they run the risk of just being "a bunch of stuff happening". I think I have a tendency to rush off half-cocked as far as that's concerned.

For argument's sake though, I'll say once the first seeds have been planted - two days of brewing before I can start typing.

On the whole, I agree with empty_coffee_cup. But I'd add that it can depend on the length of the story too, particularly if you're writing novel length works. I've been known to write the first chapter and have no idea at all what might happen by Chapter 5. To me, that's all part of the fun.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Agreed. A big part of the editing process is correlating what the characters become by the end with what you thought they were in the beginning.

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

I like the analogy, but I think I take it from a different angle. To make tea you need a tea bag, a cup, hot water. For a story you need an idea, characters, plot, scenes. Playing around an idea in your head is all well and good but you could be letting a lot of good material slip through your fingers if you don't put pen to paper ASAP. Doesn't mean every idea will be gold, you'll probably trash most of it.

Every writer works differently but what I find works for me is keeping a notebook nearby and jotting down any random idea I have that works for the story, then I play around with characters that will fit and finally I start writing a good outline. With an outline I find I have something to let stew. Eventually it gets to the point where the idea is begging to be started, I can see the first scene, the first line and I have to write it down.

Love that feeling. Better than anything in the world.

 

[_Lynn_]

Letting a story brew in my mind isn't going to happen since I don't have the story there in the first place. I begin writing with nothing more than a sentence or thought in my head. The rest happens as I go.

The NaNo I did this year is a great example. A Christmas/winter anthology, I decided to use a diner in the first piece. That was all I had. But each sentence/paragraph led to more, until I had 30k words. Two other stories followed in the same pattern. The one I put into the holiday contest here started from an image in my head after I opened a blank document.

 

[sr71plt]

Mine are still brewing as I write.

 

[The_Fool]

Damn, I was hoping this was a beer thread...