Need help with my ideas into stories

zhongzhao

Virgin
Joined
May 11, 2006
Posts
5
I have quite a few ideas everything from Aunt Peg (that pegs her nephew), Haunted House that curses (or rewards) all who live there, a femdom party, to a non-erotic story based on a song. But my question is how do I get those ideas on to paper to be exact how do I start I just can't start the story as once upon a time.
 
zhongzhao said:
I have quite a few ideas everything from Aunt Peg (that pegs her nephew), Haunted House that curses (or rewards) all who live there, a femdom party, to a non-erotic story based on a song. But my question is how do I get those ideas on to paper to be exact how do I start I just can't start the story as once upon a time.

Tell me what's on your mind about the Haunted House. That's the one that has my interest.
 
Hi n welcome to the Hangout.

So, I'm not sure what you are saying. Do you want to write a story yourself, but don't know how to begin, or are you looking for someone to turn your ideas into stories?

If it's the latter, there's a Story Ideas forum here that might be what you're looking for. If you want to write it yourself, do what all great artists do: Steal (Or "get inspired". Same thing really.) Read a few stories, and save the ones you like, then check out how they got their stories going and try to do something similar.
 
zhongzhao said:
I have quite a few ideas everything from Aunt Peg (that pegs her nephew), Haunted House that curses (or rewards) all who live there, a femdom party, to a non-erotic story based on a song. But my question is how do I get those ideas on to paper to be exact how do I start I just can't start the story as once upon a time.

Hi, Z, and welcome to the AH. You could start a story by saying "once upon a time" as long as you don't start by saying "It was a dark and stormy night".
 
zhongzhao said:
... I just can't start the story as once upon a time.

Why not. Some of the greatest stories of the ages start that way. :p

The way you start your first draft is not necessarily the way the story will start when you're finished with it. If "Once upon a time there was a house that was more than a simple construction of wood and stone" gets you started on the haunted house story so you can get all of your thoughts onto paper (or hard-disk), then start your first draft that way and worry about a better "Hook" in the editing process.

The best advice I ever got was: "Sit down and let the words flow through your fingers witthout stressing over spelling, punctuation and grammar. When the words stop flowing, delete the two-thirds that is total crap and edit what remains into a story."
 
Starting a story is probably the toughest thing to do when writing. There's so many ways to do it, but picking the most appropriate way for the story is key. I tend to focus on the main character and introduce them first, introduce the other main character(love interest), describe their world and go from there.

Talking about haunted house stories, has anyone seen Monster House? I love that movie.
 
Weird Harold said:
...

The best advice I ever got was: "Sit down and let the words flow through your fingers witthout stressing over spelling, punctuation and grammar. When the words stop flowing, delete the two-thirds that is total crap and edit what remains into a story."


This was the point of asking zhongzhao to tell me about the Haunted House idea. Having a conversation with someone is sometimes easier than just sitting down to write, and since any conversation here has to be typed... :D
 
I was asking for help to turn my ideas in to stories I was going to write myself or at least try to write myself. As for my haunted house story I just have the preliminary idea right now.

The story takes place in a large New England town or elsewhere?(I'm leading toward NE for snow) the house was built on the remains of a closed down insane asylum which itself was a former convent/church the house in question was built in the early 20th? century. The asylum was torn down (a larger one was built across town) with the exception of the basement which is pedestrian except for a single metal door that will not open (behind this door is basement to the old asylum/church). I was going to start this with a couple no kids, age mid 20's to early 30's, a very attractive real estate agent walks the couple through the house giving the story behind the house. While she can not answer all the questions the couple has a trip to the library by the realitor reveals more. A journal will be found by the husband or wife giving some of the bizarre happenings of the house. I plan on this being multi-part and it will have sex (a large number of patients in the asylum where sex related cases. So my story will take place with flash backs various locations).

Well that's my idea, I'm planning to write it myself soon I hope.
 
zhongzhao said:
I was going to start this with a couple, no kids, age mid 20's to early 30's, a very attractive real estate agent walks the couple through the house giving the story behind the house. While she can not answer all the questions the couple has, a trip to the library by the realtor reveals more.

This sounds like the answer to your original question -- at least for this story. I would avoid revealing too much about the House too quickly; Let the readers find out about the House along with the new owners over the course of the series.

One question: Are your main couple intentionally looking for a "Haunted House" or are they just looking for a "fixer-upper with some history?"

There is an HGTV series called If Wallls Could Talk that features couples that find their houses have the kind of history your fictional House has, including several that find old letters, journals, and artifacts in the attic and basement. It might be worth the trouble of finding and downloading some episodes for inspiration.
 
I think every writer likes to start a story in a different way. I would say the best idea is to look at some stories and think about whether you like that method of opening a story.

Common openings:

-Establish a setting. This is common in books, stories, even in movies. You can either start far out (establishing the city, then the neighborhood, then the house, etc) or start in the room with the actors.

-Dialog. This especially works well with shorter stories, especially dealing with two characters. You can even start with something like, "Hey Charlie," and then start adding bits to the characters until they are established.

-Internal dialog. I really like this one myself, because I write mostly first-person stories. Like the above dialog it immediately introduces a character, but not with something as boring as, "He was tall, with blond hair..."

-Character. Something as boring as... But seriously, you can start with a character and work towards the setting and the action.

-Action. Start the story at the first key event. This can either be done with flashbacks to fill in the backstory leading to the key event, or the story can be done without any backstory.

Anyway, there are a bunch of different options, those are the ones that I could think of off the top of my head. The beginning of the story should reinforce the rest of the story. If you have a relatively short story, jump right in with dialog or action. If you are going to tell a longer story, then establish things before you get too far into the story.

Another tip is to write the opening last. Not necessarily literally last, but just start writing where the meat of the story begins and add some introductory material as you go along.
 
Welcum to the AH, Z.

The best we can tell you is this-

You start with an idea and you have a really bad case of diahrrea of the fingers. Then when you finish, you scrap about half to two-thirds of the shit and you have a story.

Sorry.
 
Back
Top