#2: Pre-Writing

In simplest terms, pre-writing is what you do before writing. Go ahead and groan; I know you want to. Specifically, it is the brainstorming and planning you do to create your story. And the best way to illustrate this is to take you through the creation of a story step by step. Write along with these tutorials; just choose your own ideas. It's called practice and you are under no obligation to show it to anyone or submit it anywhere. But the more seriously you treat your writing, the better it will get.

Many people--especially non-writers--confuse idea, plot, and story. These are three separate but related things. You start with an idea. This is usually the seed that the story grows from, condensed to a sentence, a question, or maybe an entire scene. The Tortures at the Alternative Biker Mice Site are a collection of ideas. And depending on the length of the story, you may use more than one idea. But ideas are the easy part.

The best definition of a plot I have found is by Donna Levin in Get That Novel Written!. "A plot is a series of causally related events that emerge from a series of ever-intensifying conflicts and proves a premise at the end." (Levin 49) Ideas give you events and conflicts, and you turn them into a plot by stringing them together with the characters’ reactions to the events and conflicts.

Explaining it is the easy part. Doing it is much harder.

So how is plot different from story? So glad you asked. From Dwight V. Swain: "A story is the formed record of a character-testing conflict told from a viewpoint." (Writing and Selling Your Novel by Jack M. Bickham 27) In other words, it is the total of everything, where the plot is just the events that take place. And since we are dealing with writers who create both novels and short stories, I use story to refer to the finished product no matter what the word length is.

Confused? Be sure to ask questions, I want to go in further detail if you need me to.

Back to the story. Wait, we don't have one. Now we need to pre-write. How much do we know about what we want to write? We know it is a Biker Mice story and the characters established on the show are available for us to use.

Now we go digging in the idea file. This is the place where you record all the "what if" ideas you have about anything. It can be a notebook, a computer file, a box filled with note cards. Use whatever works for you, just don't rely on your memory. Some people say "if the story was meant to be written I would remember it." Can we all say "bad idea?” Sometimes I can't remember my phone number and I'm going to trust my brain with precious bits of inspiration?

Write the ideas down. Especially if you're like me and can think up a dozen while stuck at a boring task--like washing dishes. I keep mine for Biker Mice in the binder with my other Biker Mice information. It's divided into two lists: one for the unnamed series and one for stand-alones.

Stand-alones are stories that are not part of a series that a person can read without needing to read everything else you've written before. I'm defining the jargon as we go, so just feel smart when you don’t need the definition.

For the purposes of these tutorials, I'm picking one of the stand-alones to work on. Which idea sparks the imagination, makes me want to explore it? I like this one: "Jack goes crazy, erases Charley's memories of the bros and convinces her they are married."

Now it's time to brainstorm. Some people can brainstorm entirely in their minds and transfer a completed scene to paper. It takes lots of practice, a lot of free time, and a desire to walk around muttering to yourself and not caring what other people think.

Some people find talking to others helpful. I do--to a certain degree. Ray Bradbury found early in his career that he would talk about his stories to anyone who would listen. Then when he sat at his typewriter nothing would come. Henry Kuttner gave him some helpful advice, "Shut up and write." Talking with others helps when I'm stuck with a line of dialogue, the direction of a scene, a possibility about Martian culture, or a detail fact that needs checking. It helps to talk about character details and personality traits too, especially established characters. But more about that in the character tutorial.

We'll start with pen and paper techniques that vary between freewriting and structured writing. Freewriting is just writing the first thing that pops into your head without editing your thoughts.

Open-Ended Writing

Open-Ended Writing is a timed freewriting exercise. For ten minutes, just write anything on your mind. Once the ten minutes are up, summarize all the freewriting into one good sentence. I find that this is a good exercise when you're stuck with writer's block or takes you a while to warm up to actual writing. You can either continue freewriting from that sentence or incorporate it into your story.

Loop Writing

The best example I have found for Loop Writing was given by Angela K. in Reality Check #1 at www.fanfiction.net, which has been removed. First write whatever is easiest for you to write, like dialogue. Then add in the characters' movements. Then go back over it and add in the details of the scene. I find it cumbersome to keep going over and over the same material but this structured technique might work for you.

Clustering

Clustering is the freewriting technique I use most often. It is visually stimulating by design. On a blank sheet of paper, put your central idea in the middle and circle it. At this point, it is whatever idea sparks your interest in writing. What is the first question or idea that pops into your mind when you consider that sparking idea? Write it down, circle it, and then draw a line back to the originating idea. When no more ideas come, go back a circle and ask yourself a different question. In the end, you should have a chart that looks something like this.

You continue branching off, letting your mind go in any direction it wants until you feel that you've exhausted all possibilities or run out of room on the paper. A variation on clustering is to put the notes on note cards and shuffle through the cards until all you need to do is flesh out the story. I'll expand on this variation when we get to plotting.

At this point, consider what type of story you want the finished product to be. What genre will it fall into? (By genre, I mean mystery, romance, science fiction, fantasy, action-adventure, and the sub-genres contained within.) Is it a stand-alone or part of a larger series? Do you want it to be a novel or a short story? Note: a novel is not a really long short story. A short story because of length only has room for one plot. A novel must have one plot and at least one sub-plot (though more likely to have two or three). More on this when we discuss plot.

Getting back to the fledging story. I already know it is a stand-alone. It'll be a short story because I'm currently writing a novel. Plus less words means quicker writing time. Now for the genre. I like mysteries and other than "My Cheese is Quick" episode I don't think a mystery has been tackled by other BM writers. Choosing the genre helps when creating the atmosphere. Mystery has a completely different feel from sword and sorcery fantasy. I want to create a Twilight Zone one, what's wrong with this picture feeling for Charley to operate under and the mystery is what has happened to her life. Great start.

Remember Important Lesson #6? "Pre-writing makes finding the words slightly easier and helps the final product have a sense of closure. And makes sequel writing a little easier." How does all this brainstorming help make writing sequels easier? Do your brainstorming for a series while working on this story. Think up timelines. The series I'm working on has a timeline covering Earth years 1946 to 2001. It is a great way to keep ages and birthdays straight as well as when flashback events took place. Writing a story will often trigger ideas for other stories without you even realizing it. A line of dialogue makes you imagine an entire scenario that happened years ago. While inserting a flashback is not necessary, you should take notes on when and what happened. You never know when an idea will fit with a future story. Brainstorming on the relationships between characters will add to ideas for a series of books. As you begin this initial brainstorming process, you should have an idea of how this story will affect the larger group. Series are not created in a vacuum. And this should be a separate tutorial.

Going back to timelines and outlines. I'm all in favor of writing things down. Never trust memory. You can use an outline to brainstorm, if sticking to the layout does not hinder the brainstorming process. I find it more helpful to keep track of the scenes I've written or need to write.

Example for this story:

1. Charley's dream
   
   
   
   1. Flashback to "Mouse and His Motorcycle", the bros on the beach
      
   2. Use Charley watching dream and not quite knowing what to make of it
      
   
   
2. Waking up
   
   
   
   1. Jack is sharing her bed
      
   2. He gets upset with the mention of the bros but moves quickly to cover it up and explains Charley's amnesia.
      
   
   

There are different styles of outlines; I default to the traditional one I was taught in high school. When using one, you do run into the controversy of whether outlining stifles the imagination, but we'll cover the usage pros and cons in the plotting tutorial.

Do you have to have a timeline? No, you don't have to have one but I'd recommend it. Especially if the story will cover years of a character's life or if you're planning a long, involved series. And just because you write something down, it doesn't mean you have to use it or that is can never be re-thought. And by doing most of your thinking before you start writing, you cut down the revising and editing you have to do to the final product. But trust me, there will be plenty to edit and revise.

The last idea to cover in the brainstorming session is the Comprehensive Concept. This is an important feature in Todd A. Stone’s Novelist’s Boot Camp. Instead of asking countless what if questions of your first idea, you direct your what if questions to cover the four main elements of the story (genre, main character, opposition, and macro setting). Then you combine these elements into one intriguing sentence that described your story.

Example: Turbo (opposition) arrives in Chicago (macro setting), and secrets Throttle (main character) has kept buried for most of his life now threaten Charley (main character) in the sequel to Biker Mice From Mars: Wars Are Won By Those Who Dare: Let Us Give Thanks (genre).

Example: Away from the familiar O.Z. (macro setting), the runaway Princess (main character) and the Tin Man (main character) join Captain “Blood-rage” Betsy Bobbins’ (main character) quest and cross swords with sullen pirates (opposition), the navy out to stop Bobbins (opposition), and a legendary evil (opposition) lurking the Nonestic Ocean (macro setting).

I know the genre is mystery, Charley is the main character, her opposition is Jack MacCyber, and the setting is Chicago. So now to string them together in a sentence that describes the story.

Comprehensive Concept: Charley does not believe the details Jack is giving her of the last four years that she can’t remember and must find the truth about him and the three biker following her around Chicago.

Why come up with a comprehensive concept now? As you brainstorm scenes, you can check them against the concept to see if the help the story. And when you are ready to publish the story, your advertising snippet is already written.

Homework: I think I said that the only way you learn to write is by writing. (And if I didn't I've said it now. ) So here's the homework for this week.

Pick an idea to write about. Brainstorm about the story and write the notes down in a way you will understand later. And answer these questions. What genre does this story fall into? Is it a stand-alone or part of a series? Is it a short story or a novel? Who is the main character? Who is their opposition? Where is the story set? Formulate a Comprehensive Concept to explain your story.

That's all for this week. And remember, brainstorming is not finished at the end of the week. As you continue mulling the story in your mind as you're writing, that's brainstorming. You may have to use one or more of these techniques to get started writing during a writing session. You'll probably come up with your own techniques. Just don't stop thinking, okay?