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Written by Jeffery Stevenson
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Monday, 20 December 2004 |
Welcome to the Mall of Creativity and Imagination! A directory has been provided for your convenience. See that large 'X' on the map? Guess where you are? Now, where do you want to go? As a creative type, you have thousands upon thousands of possibilities you could explore each time you take pen to paper (or fingers to the clickety-klak of a keyboard). Just like a mall, you could just go there to wander. You could explore each store in the hopes of finding something you need or want, but there's also the chance that you'll find nothing at all. You might stumble upon a really nice pair of shoes and set forth on a search to find a hat to go with them. Then you find a sale on CDs on your way to the hat store and rummage through the bins for that They Might Be Giants CD you've put off getting for a while. You see the Ferris Bueller's Day Off movie soundtrack and take off to go find the novel adaptation of the movie that your sister wanted. As you scour the shelves, you catch a glance of a Final Fantasy cheat book and realize you forgot to put in your pre-order for Final Fantasy XVII! Now, it's off to the computer game store where you waste away a couple hours playing Wolverine's Revenge while spitting out SNIKT! sound effects and trying to make "Bub" and "I'm the best there is at what I do" sound like something a tough guy would say. As your stomach growls, you head off for the food court and nourish your nutrient-deficient body with chili cheese fries and 128 ounces of sugary sweet lemonade.
A number of writers like to leap into a story stream-of-consciousness style and let themselves get lost in the wonder of creative exploration. It's not a bad method for discovering and fleshing out stray thoughts and ideas...I spend time each day writing impromptu stories for fun and practice, and sometimes those will evolve into bigger stories. But when I'm actually working on a story for myself or someone else, I like to know upfront where I'm headed. I like to have a path to follow to keep the story focused...a destination for the trip I want to send my readers on. And I can hear some people now...doesn't that restrict your creativity?
Welcome back to the Mall of Creativity and Imagination! You are here. This time, you have a good idea what you want. There's a social event this weekend, and you want to look your best and make an impression. You look over the directory to find a hair stylist, and you're off. You get the shampoo and conditioning scalp massage, a nice trim, and some texturizing paste to style that do up right. Next, you need the clothes to match the hair. You hit a couple stores browsing through racks of shirts and trousers until you find a great shirt. You remember the previous store had a pair of slacks that would go great with this shirt. As you grab those trousers and toss a few flirtatious comments toward the cute-as-a-button sales clerk, she recommends a shoe store that her friend works at that would have the perfect pair of shoes for your outfit. Off you go to retrieve that perfect pair of shoes...success! Her friend hooks you up with some shoes that really pull that outfit together. You head back to thank the cute sales clerk for her recommendation, and she asks if you have a date yet for that event this weekend. Well, you do now.
When you have a goal to reach, it makes things much easier. In the mall example, the end goal was to look good for the social event to make an impression. The events could have happened in any order because they all head toward the same goal, but the path taken could change. What if the person looked for the clothes first while the sales clerk was at lunch? The story would have changed. What if the person ran into an old friend from school and stopped to reminisce about old times? Maybe they mention his old girlfriend was asking about him, and he calls her up to invite her to the event. The story would have changed. But even with the changes in the story, the end goal remains fairly intact...looking good for that social event. He might show up with a different date for the event based on what happens during his search, or he could run into complications and enter a struggle to make himself presentable in time for the big social event. There's still a lot of room for creative discovery...even when you have a good idea how you want the story to end. You don't have to know the exact ending, but it helps to have a general idea of where to take the story.
Also, notice in the quick example how each part of the search had its own beginning and ending. As soon as one little part of the story completed, it spun into the next part of the story that was needed to reach the goal. That's the basics of cause-and-effect (stimulus-response) writing. Actions have reactions. Stimuli cause responses in the people and the environment. The events of your story come about due to earlier actions...even your ending. This keeps your story tight and adds a touch of believability to even the wildest of situations. If your sequence of events build in a fairly logical manner that readers can follow, you make it easier for those readers to also suspend disbelief and not jump out of the story when you do introduce thoughts, ideas and settings that exist outside reality. Now, if you have a good idea where your story's headed, couldn't you use the cause-and-effect patterns to step backwards through your story to plot it out? He looks good and impresses his boss. What causes that? His realization that his confidence and personality were needed to make the impression--not looking good. What causes that? A conflict turns an acquaintance away from him because he forced his personality to fit his new look instead of letting his winning personality shine. Etc...etc...all the way back to the beginning.
There's another benefit to having a general idea about the ending of your story. You can make sure you resolve the story you began. If you open up by introducing a mystery to the readers, the resolution of that big mystery should be your ending. If you thrust a character's life into turmoil at the beginning, your ending will resolve that by bringing their world back to the status quo or to a newly perceived sense of order. You can spin intricate subplot after subplot within your story, but if you don't finish the story you started, the reader will subconsciously pick up on it. The ending might seem off to them or the ending might not sit well with them. They might not know exactly how to phrase it, but deep down, they'll know that the story they felt like they were reading was left dangling without a resolution to match the story the writer opened with.
Many people will continue writing stream-of-consciousness style, but for those of you struggling to get your stories to end or struggling with writing longer stories, try to think about your ending before you start your story. Know where it begins, how it ends, and some of the specific events you want to happen to express conflict, characterization, or setting. Then, have fun creating a path to your goal that's filled with excitement and scenic wonders. Just because you're following a path from beginning to end, it doesn't mean you can't toss in some traps, pits, and wild animals along the way...just to keep the readers on their toes.
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