You started with a spark of inspiration, a story question or a situation worth exploring. You've brainstormed all the related ideas, themes, characters, situations feelings, even symbols or mental images this idea inspired through mind-mapping, previewing and visualization. Now it's time to get cooking.
Find the Hottest Coals
First: set all that work aside (you'll need it later) and walk away. Clear your head. Think about something else. In fact, don't think about story at all.Second: find your mental creative place (a quiet room, or put on your headphones and blast your favorite music, go for a walk, or even just wait until a certain time of day when you feel the most relaxed and creative) and summon up those feelings and images that first inspired you.
Third: without referring to you notes, write down the four or five key ideas you feel are absolutely necessary, the things which resonate with you the strongest, the reason you want to write this story.
Pile On the Fuel
Now get in touch with your inner seven-year-old child and ask questions, lots of questions. Pick the first item on your short list and start writing down questions. If the item you're thinking about is a thing or a place, be sure to ask about the people behind it. Who made it, or made it significant. What important thing happened there or with it? If it's about a person, ask what important changes have occurred in their life when the story starts. What do they want to change? Why haven't they done so before now? If the item is more abstract, ask yourself what about it makes it cool, creepy, attractive, frightening or maddening and what kind of people, places or things do you associate it with.Don't worry about whether or not the questions seem silly or even make sense. Just jot them down quickly You're goal here is to trick your subconscious into giving up its secrets. When you've gone through each item, go back and answer these questions. Again, work quickly. Write whatever springs to mind. If some questions or answers stand out, go back and ask more. You may even find yourself in a dialog with yourself, asking and answering your own questions as you look for the meaning behind the things you want to write about.
No matter how strange this dialog may seem, assume that nuggets of pure gold are hiding within. You are telling yourself what you want to write. Like a young child, your subconscious may not explain itself very well or lose site of the pig picture under a mound of odd details so be prepared to look at these ideas from all angles as you search for the secret connections and purpose behind them all.
When you do go back afterward, focus on the people, groups and organizations behind the story. Look at their history and motivations. Look for patterns, who works together with whom and why? Where do they agree and disagree? The heat of your story comes from conflict and conflict comes from strongly motivated characters pursuing incompatible goals or using incompatible methods to achieve them.
At this point, you may already have a full story in your head. If you gone through all the steps so far, you should, at the very least, have the essence of one ready to be put together. All you have to do is find your focus and concentrate the heat.
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