Category: Brainstorming & Inspiration

Big ideas and how to get them.

Being Awesome Together

r-avatarMostly we write about the logistical and procedural aspects of writing with a partner: how to divvy up the work, how we can each play to our strengths, and so on. What we mention in passing is that we talk to each other a lot, and now maybe it’s time to make those conversations the focus of a post on the Skelleyverse.

Kent’s current assignment is to make a pass through the music novel watching for places to have the main character “think in music” — we want readers to be able to hear the world through his ears, and we want it to be clear that music is fundamental to him, not just something he does. Well, Kent made use of Scrivener’s nifty tools for filtering and organizing text nodes to find the places where such edits would make sense, and … stared at it for an hour. Eventually he changed one word. It was a good one, mind you. But let’s review: one word.

But then — but then! — while Kent and Jen were spooling down from their gruelling work session, they chatted about Kent’s mission for about five minutes and came up with several excellent ideas for ways to incorporate the desired flavor. If Kent hadn’t been so fixated on the notion that it was “his” job to come up with this stuff, they could have spent some time chatting up front and come out way ahead.

Every writer needs someone to talk to, even if it’s not a partner per se. It’s critical for effective problem-solving. And if you are lucky enough to have someone sitting in the same room with you, who knows the details of your project and understands the creative vision, then don’t squander the opportunity to think out loud with that person! Good things will happen.

Two-Fisted Writers

r-avatarLots of people read more than one book at a time, and now we seem to be flirting with the idea of writing more than one simultaneously.

While we’ve been getting back into the swing of things with our nightly writing routine, which has felt like learning to ride a bike all over again, we’ve also been brainstorming plot ideas based around a really nifty bizarro premise that Jen came up with.

There are certain traits we’ve identified as essential to the Rune Skelley brand, and Jen’s concept embodies some of them right out of the gate. It’s dark, for one thing. Character driven for another. But there’s a particular type of story world that we like to build, something that’s made all the more strange by its seeming familiarity. That’s where the brainstorming is focused right now, figuring out the setting and what’s freaky about it.

We’re thinking about handling it as a sequel to something we wrote last year. The themes resonate, and that story world’s mechanicals suggest a direction for a plot. So it’s promising, but we don’t want to get too locked into one view of how we might do things.

Besides, we still have about half of the outline to get through in our current project, and there are a couple of other novel drafts awaiting our tender revisionist ministrations.

Early Stages of Story Development

We’re currently hard at work on our new novel, have been for several weeks, although technically we haven’t written the first word. We haven’t even started to create the outline. All that exists in tangible form so far is a few pages of notes.

What have we been doing all this time?

Talking, mostly. The cast is pretty well defined at this point, and we’ve become comfortable enough with the premise to have a shorthand of sorts for referring to it. We’ll choose a character or a plot element to brainstorm about, and set out to walk a lap around the neighborhood. When we get home, there are usually several new additions or amendments to be made to those notes. Some of the new ideas are incompatible with what we already had, but we hang onto it all because we’re not sure yet which version will turn out to be truth.

Yesterday, Kent took a stab at capturing a single, cohesive rendition of the plot we have so far, skipping over all the false starts and mirages. It’s not yet ready to be used as a real outline, but it has already served a useful purpose. Jen went through it and had only a few minor notes, which gave us both confirmation that we really do have the same mental image of the story.

The verbal interaction is fluid and dynamic. In fact, this is probably the stage of the process where a collaboration is most alive, because the process itself consists entirely of talking to the other person. But getting it down on paper creates something concrete that you can analyze with greater precision.

We have about half a plot, so far. The beginning is nailed down pretty well, but not all of the alternatives have been pruned all the way through the middle. As for the ending, well we’re in basic agreement about which characters need a comeuppance and who should get a happy(ish) outcome, and several images have been proposed that could be part of the climax. So, about half a plot. With any luck, it’ll go faster from here on out.

 

Inspiration Strikes When You Least Expect It

In this case, it was on a bus. Jen and Kent took a trip — by bus, ‘cuz they’re such high-rollers — which gave them a bit of time to discuss what their next project should be.

As you may recall, the intrepid duo has been struggling with one of the facets of a writing partnership, namely agreeing on what to write about. Historically, Kent has been more of the big-idea guy and Jen brings characters and relatability. In this case, Jen brought pretty much everything. During the bus ride, she and Kent figured out a premise that unites a whacky (and fairly big) idea she’d mentioned months ago with the character she’s been mildly obsessed with of late. The vexing question of what to use for the hidden reality of the story world finally had an answer.

But wait, there’s more!

The new premise lends itself to a story-within-the-story, which means there is also a role for Kent’s current pet big idea, the one that they’ve despaired of ever coming to terms with. There’s even been talk of some short stories to explore the concept. Everybody wins!

So, yeah. All it took was ten hours on a bus.

Negotiations

As we talked about in our previous writing collaboration post, we’re trying to decide what our next novel-length project will be. Kent has an idea that he is very fond of. Unfortunately it doesn’t hold much appeal for Jen. This leads us to the land of negotiations.

It’s an unusual place for us to find ourselves. Not to be too smug, but we generally share a brain really well. There is very little dissension in either our marriage or our writing partnership. When we do disagree, we usually work through it pretty quickly. We’re damn near perfect!

Except now we have reached an impasse. We are stalled. Kent loves his Big Idea and, so, is having trouble brainstorming anything else. Jen thinks the idea sounds like something interesting to read, maybe, but doesn’t feel drawn to devote a year or more of her life to it. Without feeling a connection, it’s really impossible to be invested. Kent understands that. He really does.

Jen does not currently have a Big Idea to counter with, which is both good and bad. If she had a proposal it might entice Kent enough to put his baby aside, or it might cause friction, with both of us digging in our heels and fighting to the death for our own cause. It might even lead to working solo (gasp! horror!).

As it stands, Jen wants to be persuaded. Or at least she wants the reassurance of knowing what’s coming up. As we’ve said, Jen’s all about the backstory, so the more time she has to cogitate about that kind of thing the happier she is. And so Kent keeps approaching the story from different angles, desperately trying to trick Jen into writing it with him.

Have no fear, dear reader. We aren’t just spinning our wheels. After a well-earned and highly enjoyable trip to Bermuda to celebrate our anniversary, we have our noses back to the grindstone. We’re hip-deep in a read-through of our trilogy, which will lead to one more round of edits before we turn it over to our critique group again. And after that we have a stand-alone novel that’s been patiently waiting for its own round of edits. Plus there’s always marketing. And short stories.

Meanwhile, Jen has a character name she really likes, and part of another. She’s starting to form a picture of what this character (and a half) are like, which might lead to a Big Idea.

That’s when the negotiations will start in earnest.

It Cuts Both Ways

Sometimes your inspiration starts with the Big Idea, or maybe the starting point is a particular character, or a name for a character, or a plot twist. No matter how your inspiration usually arrives, the project will ultimately rely on having all the pieces fit together.

All of that is basic, intro-to-creative-writing type stuff, and none of it is specific to collaborative writing. However, the experience of getting from the initial flash to the actual writing is a lot different for partners. It’s kind of a double-edged sword.

You have to find subject matter that both partners are interested in. No matter how well aligned your tastes and styles, it’s likely that you or your partner will occasionally feel inspired about something that the other simply doesn’t care for. The idea might be fantastic, but still not turn out to be something you can collaborate on.

On the other hand, there could be other reasons that you struggle to win over your partner to your idea. Maybe it’s not as shiny as you think it is, or maybe it’s just not quite ready yet. Working on your own, you would probably chase after your exciting Big Idea, wanting to pounce while you feel inspired. You’d only discover its problems after devoting a lot of time and effort to a draft.

In our case, an idea can fall down at the conceptual stage mainly due to not being quite the right kind of science fiction. There’s a certain type of world-building that we do well together. Our story worlds generally only diverge from consensus reality at a submerged level. They look superficially like the real world, but harbor deep and sinister differences. So, for example, a far-future setting represents a major stylistic and procedural shift for the writing — different kinds of research, different pacing for exposition, different priorities. Meaning there will be an uphill journey for a Big Idea that needs a far-future world in which to thrive, and if we come up with a different inspiration we’ll probably follow it instead.

Not that it’s impossible for us to imagine working together on different types of fiction, just that it’s not healthy for the partnership to try to force things.

What’s The Big Idea?

Today we’re going to talk about the very beginnings of the journey, the Story Concept. How do you decide what to write about? Where do you get your ideas?

Obviously there is no concrete answer to those questions. Everyone takes inspiration from different things that they encounter in their lives. There is no formula. Except in our writing partnership there kind of is. Kent is the concept guy. Jen is the plotter.

Here’s how it usually goes:

Kent: Hey, I have an idea for a story.

Jen: Do tell.

Kent: Okay, there’s a world where all of the molecules are rotated 90° counterclockwise!

Jen: ?

Kent: Get it? Because then all the molecules are rotated a quarter turn!

Jen: So what happens next?

Kent: I don’t know.

There are probably some of you who would love to read Kent’s 100,000 word treatise on the partially rotated molecules, but I suspect there are many more who would find, without characters or a plot, it might be a little boring.

On the other hand, Jen can spin plot complications all day long. She will happily devote days to drawing up timelines for characters’ actions, more days to filling in their family trees, and still more days to sketching floor plans for their (and their parents’) houses. Jen is all about the backstory, but generally doesn’t have the moment of inspiration that produces the hook.

And then we act out an old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial:

Kent: Hey! You got your plot complications in my big idea!

Jen: Hey! You got your big idea in my plot complications!

And that’s what writing partners can be: Two great tastes that taste great together.