Photo credit: M. M. Kastanek
Prompt: Cairns of porous rock line the path down the mountain. Words: scared, family, cloud, mother, guess, room My Snippet: Cairns of porous rock line the path down the mountain. It unnerves me a bit, to see such evidence of their presence. Whoever they are. We're still not quite sure. But these little stacks have started appearing all over the village. People are scared. Hell, I don't blame them. When you open the door to your baby's room and there's a cairn of stones stacked in his bed, you can't help but be a bit freaked out. That's what happened to Iri's family the other day. He said his mother went white as clouds and collapsed. Shit, if that happened to my mother, I would've gone out searching for them, too. But now Iri hasn't come back. So I guess it's my turn to go out there. I promised I wouldn't leave him to the "them." But now as I look at all the cairns down the path, I second guess my decision.
0 Comments
Photo credit: M. M. Kastanek
Prompt: When the ice coated the trees, the fairies came out to play.... Words: maid, soil, words, forest, dripped, garment My Snippet: When the ice coated the trees, the fairies came out to play. At least, that's what M'Dola always said. And she would know. M'Dola was my nursemaid, but I've far outgrown the need for nursing or maids. So I suppose now she's just a friend. Though it feels weird to think of her as that. I mean, do you really call someone a friend if they changed your soiled undergarments as a babe? She taught me my first word, 'fairy', because that's all the old woman spoke of from the time she was changing my undergarments to today as we walk through the forest of Nihlo, the branches weighed by dripping silver-white ice. Photo credit: Pixaby Developing story milestones are necessary to understanding the flow of your story as a whole. Some writers do this before the process, some do it during, and some do it after. Regardless, you should be able to identify those milestones and use them to improve your story. What are story milestones?You can think of milestones as simple or as complex as you'd like. For me, milestones are important events that occur within your story. This could be as simple as making sure the main character finds a cat, or as complex as planning out the subtle hints of political intrigue. You can look at milestones formally (think back to middle school English - the rising action, the conflict, etc.), or informally (he discovers magic at some point in the story). My milestones often look like this:
Sometimes I'll be more detailed than that, but honestly, those points help me write the whole story. Other times, I just know the ending. I know the character and I know what happens to them, but I have to get there! All of this depends on if you are a Plotter, a Pantser, or a Plantser. If you've been writing for awhile, you've heard these terms before. But for those of you who don't know, a plotter is someone who tends toward extensive planning. They outline, they write backstories of their characters, they develop their worlds, they know literally everything about the story before they sit down to write. Pantsers on the other hand write by the seat of their pants (hence the name). They just have an idea and start writing! Maybe it'll go down one bunny trail, but maybe it'll go down another. Heck, maybe it'll leap into outer space and start something totally new there! Plantsers are a mixture of the two, doing minor planning, and some writing without a guide. The way each type of writer uses milestones is different. Milestones for PlottersMilestones mean something different to each plotter. For some, they are precise moments they know must happen for the story to achieve its goal. For others, milestones are more literal, such as the rising action, the climax, and the denouement. Outlining these points is a great way to get an overarching view of your story before you sit down to write it. Think of these milestones like a roadmap. Each point is a different direction you have to make sure to hit, or you'll be going the wrong way! Just because you're outlining, doesn't mean it needs to be bland. Check out the snowflake method or do the traditional school outline - any way that works for YOU as the writer. Many plotters spend their developmental stages connecting the dots of their story so that they have a great overarching view before they even begin. I admit - I'm jealous of people who can do that! This is a great way to know your story and stay on track without getting distracted with rabbit holes that pop up. A word of caution for plotters considering their milestones: I do believe you can plot something too heavily, making the resulting narrative feel stilted and formulated. Make sure you still breathe life into your work and allow for little things to happen that you didn't expect! Milestones for PantsersMilestones for pantsers are typically discovered during the editing stages. Every story does have milestones - even for those who don't plan them out in advance! It can be extremely helpful for pantsers to mark down these big milestones or turning points during their editing process so as to see where they should focus their attention on. Pantsers are notorious for writing those scenes that really don't contribute much to the plot (guilty). When editing your manuscript after it's written, focusing on milestones is a great way to hone in on what you really need in your story! Go through your manuscript and mark places that contribute directly to the plot. Mark the point of no return for each of your characters. Mark the changes your character goes through. Take your manuscript and color it up with markings to help you better understand your story. Anything that isn't marked, cut. It means you've traveled too far from the plot. Understanding where those points are will help you round out your story and keep only the best parts. A word of caution for pantsers: Don't stray so far away from a plot that you end up not having one. And be brutal when editing. You may love everything you've written, every rabbit hole and rocket ship diversion. But make sure everything you keep is an important milestone that contributes to the plot. Milestones for PlantsersI've grown to discover that as much as I identify with pantsers, I do have a little bit of planner in me. I see an overarching ending, with a few plot points I would like to hit along the way (but if they don't happen, that's okay, too). These plot points help guide my story, but they don't define it. Big plot points are helpful to know in advance, because when you're writing, you can build up to that plot point you see in your mind. In my opinion, it keeps things exciting, because I never know where my story will go next!
Keeping those milestones in mind as you write really helps to focus your writing while giving you the leeway to diverge from the path. While no way is the right way, I adore writing this way. I have focus, but I have freedom and I find that's when my best writing occurs. Keep a notebook with you to jot down milestones that come to you during the day, even if they're small. I always have a notebook with me and I'll jot down things like "she could meet him at the pub" or "add a dragon attack scene." Then the next time I sit down to write, I have something to look forward to. My word of caution for plantsers: Watch out for both of my cautions for plotters and pantsers! What kind of writer are you? Let me know in the comments how you look at milestones in your stories! Photo credit: M. M. Kastanek
Prompt: How long had this place been abandoned? Words: fragrance, paint, porous, shape, holy, must My Paragraph: How long had this place been abandoned? There was no stench of the dead, no fragrances of the living. Statues had toppled and doorways now looked more like frames missing their paintings. I allowed my hand to linger for a moment on the porous lava rock before snatching my hand to my chest. I mustn't touch. The gods would be angry that I desecrated their holy temple. I steal a glance to the sky, but I do not see their shapes emerging from the low-hanging clouds. Photo credit: Pixaby Developing a story is where most writers stumble. Heck, it's where most would-be writers are even afraid to begin. Somehow, people think that a bolt of lightning will strike them and a glorious story that needs no editing or formalizing will appear in their minds. Sorry, that's not how it works. But you know what can work that way? Ideas. Ideas are the foundations of developing a story. They don't have to be earth shattering. They don't have to be profound. To develop a story, simply start with an idea. Today, I'm sharing with you the way I develop my stories (and I've got a lot of them). This is not the be-all-end-all and may not work for everyone. I am a self-proclaimed Pantser (with a little bit of plantser in there) which means I write by the seat of my pants. I do extremely little pre-planning and just let the story flow. That said, take a look at how I develop my stories. Start with an ideaIdeas come in all shapes and sizes. There's no true "bad" idea. I mean, I just saw a romance book about falling in love with the Coronavirus... so you can't do much worse than that! Personally, my ideas come in mental images. Sometimes I just have the face of a young boy, or a dragon with a severed wing. Other times, I get the idea of a location and I want to know what happens there. My ideas often come to me from experiences (like the raccoons that trashed our camping neighbor's site at 2:00 a.m. the other night), prompts, or images. Experiences are the best way to write, in my opinion. There are elements of my travels in all of my stories. But you don't have to travel the world to have experiences. People-watch and make someone into a character. Think about a time when it seemed like the world was ending for you and build a fantasy world around it. I think sometimes people believe fantasy has to be entirely fictional, when most times, there are ties to the author's real world. I am a huge proponent of writing prompts to generate a story idea (it's how I won the Write Michigan contest last year). Write your own prompts, get a prompt book, or check out my weekly prompts to get those imagination juices flowing. Pinterest is fantastic if you're not one who imagines frequently. It's great if you're a visual person, too. I have so many potential story ideas just by browsing fantasy art on Pinterest! These are a great place to start. Check out my Pinterest for a ton of fantasy landscapes, creatures, and characters to spark your story! I've heard of others listening to music (Hans Zimmer is a personal favorite - you can't help but feel epic writing to his music), but that doesn't work for me until I have developed my story a bit. Do you have your idea yet? Focus in on a momentOkay, so you get an idea, but where do you go from here? For me, I focus in on a moment next. This means, I take the idea (or mental image) and put it in a scenario. If I see the dragon with the injured wing, I want to know how that happened. Is the dragon afraid? Or is it angry? I picture the moment what the dragon comes to me and play it like a movie in my head. Most times, this is enough to get me going. You can take a character and plop them into a "what-if" scenario. Especially if you like people-watching! Why is that girl alone eating ice cream? What are those kids doing out on the boat? I know - I hear what you're saying. "But real life doesn't help me write a fantasy." False. Take that character and imagine their situation in a fantasy world. Are the kids on a pirate ship fighting a leviathan? Is the girl ingesting a Fae poison? Take the character you've imagined and put them in a fantasy world. You can take a setting you see and start writing about the world it is in. If you look out your window and see snow-capped mountains, think about a time when suddenly all the snow disappeared. Or a time when the mountains burst apart and a snaking dragon destroyed the neighboring village. The possibilities are endless. Truly, writing is all about training your mind to think of possibilities. If you can do that, you'll never hurt for a story idea again. Don't make it epicWhatever you do, don't take your idea and spend hours fretting about how to make it epic. That'll just ruin the whole thing for you. Ideas need to be carefully peeled apart. You don't know what's at the heart of the story yet and that's okay. You don't have to have all the answers to start writing. So many new writers I talk to are stuck in the school-mode of writing where they have to plan an outline and research and only after they have a clear view can they write. That may be great for research papers (and maybe you're a hardcore planner), but for so many writers, that doesn't work. And guess what? That's okay. You can be a pantser like me! You can just write and see where it goes! I'm giving you formal permission to toss out everything your high school English teachers taught you. It's okay if you don't know everything about the story going in. The temptation is to make this idea into the next Lord of the Rings. Don't. My best ideas come when I just let the story live and breathe. I don't plan for it to be a trilogy or even a novel. Maybe it'll just be a short story. Who knows? I definitely don't. The rest will come. For now, focus on your idea in a solitary moment. Just write.Yup. Advice for the ages.
Just write. Don't think. Definitely don't edit. Don't worry about all of the contradictions you made between the first two paragraphs. That's all for later. To develop a story, you must let it live. And the way to do that, is to write. Once you understand this (and I mean truly understand this not just say, "okay Michelle but what's the REAL key?"), your writing will be so much better. It might suck at first, yes. You will write horrible things and you may have to delete a huge chunk of things. But deep down, I guarantee you you'll find some diamonds. And then you'll never again doubt that all you need to do is just write. Happy writing and may October give you endless words and dreams of fairy magic. -M. M. Kastanek |
AuthorM. M. Kastanek Archives
June 2022
Categories
All
|