We’re back to discussing the process we use before we start writing a story. This time we’re using the prompt: death in a small town. During this episode, we’ll discuss all the things we had to think about to discover our story.
Rebecca’s Notes:
- Figuring out your goals and influences
- What’s you’re “in” to creating a story?
- Writing about a feeling
- Picking a certain character
- Theme
- Mindset
- Endings
Katelyn’s Notes:
- Prewriting was much more difficult this time around because I had no idea what I was going to write about. There was no magical story that developed in my head like it did last time. I really had to sit down and figure out what I wanted to do, including:
- What tone did I want my story to have? What setting/characters/conflict could I come up with that fit with the plot? Did I want to focus on being unique or keeping it simple? How could I make something different from my last story?
- I had to sit down and take things piece by piece, pulling them together like a puzzle. I had a skeleton of an idea that revolved around a small-town fireworks show on the 4th of July. I had no clue how it was going to end, which really held me back.
- I wanted to write this story in a way that related to my own childhood, minus the alien encounter. This caused me to wonder about writing with a sense of escapism, and whether or not that was something I wanted to consciously do.