A Story Takes Form—July 5, 2007

I just finished reading a great book on dialogue called, oddly enough, "Writing Dialogue". It's late, or I should say very early and I can't remember the author's name. Sorry!

In it I found some great tips and I wanted to practice so a story idea popped into my head and I started to write; without an outline even! Gasp! I hate writing without an outline. I like to know where I am going and, it does not squash my creativity. It's really a guideline and not a set-in-stone document.

Anyway, I start writing this story to practice what I just learned (Pretty smart, huh?!) and I realize that I have a story that I am interested in.

At this point I sit down and start fleshing this out a bit more…

After the dialogue book I picked up another book of inspiration for writers by Terry Brooks, a fantasy writer.

In it he says when creating a world we need to have dream time. This is a time of sitting around and dreaming about the world you want to create. Let go and be creative! I really liked this plan though I have heard it also called brainstorming. Brainstorming sounds too business-like and dream time, to me, just sounds more creative so I have adopted the term. I will keep brainstorming in the business world.

Anyway, in two 2 hour sittings, with no outline I banged out six pages! That is the best production I have had on one piece of work since I started this madness known as writing.

I have also spent about two hours of dream time and that has proven to be beneficial as well. There are some cool things that could happen with this story. I'll keep you posted.

 

Bye for now!