Hints and Tips for Building Stories

(or how to stop rearranging your paperclips and get your project going)

If you are one of those people for whom thoughts flow effortlessly from your mind into your pen, please just pour yourself a nice cup of tea and go write.  This section is not for you.

If , however, you ever find yourself struggling with the creative process, read on. In my experience, there are two basic reasons that people get frustrated with the creative process:

1.  They take on assignments that are too big; and

2.  They don’t spend enough time pre-writing.

The information in this section is designed to respond directly to these two types of writing blocks.

I. Take on Smaller Assignments

You don’t have to sit down and write about your whole life.  That’s like trying to drink from a fire hose–way too much information at once. Instead, break the subject into more manageable bits and start with one small piece.  Rather than giving a summary of your life from the day you were born until now, it’s better to zero in on a one specific moment and write two or three pages about that small glimpse of your life.  If you wrote a 2-page story once a month, by the end of a year you would have written twelve stories.  I guarantee you that those twelve stories would go a long way towards describing who you are. But how do you identify those specific moments? Read on….

Lifelines

For starters, check out the LIFELINES categories on this site. It can help you separate your experiences into seven different categories:

The Spirit, The Body, The Space, The People, The Work, The Play, The Not

Pick one area that seems interesting for now.  Does one Lifeline pull at you more than another? Start there.

Use Story Starters

Story Starters is a workbook that my co-author, Elizabeth Taylor, and I wrote as a companion for Half Past Perfect. It provides questions for each of the Lifelines to kick-start your ideas.  You can find it in the Store section of this site. As a sample, here are a few of the questions:

The Spirit:

Has anything miraculous ever happened to you?

Was there a decision you made about money that challenged or reinforced your values? Charitable gifts? a large purchase?

What books, music, locations spoke to you about spirituality?

The Body

How have your physical attributes affected your activities? Were you always athletic? Clumsy? Strong? Injury-prone? Has that changed over your lifetime?

How has your body image changed over time? Childhood growth spurts? Teenage hormones? Resilient young adulthood? Aging in later years?

What were your favorite childhood foods? When/where did you eat them?

The Space

What cars did you drive? What did they mean to you?

What places frightened you?

What were your favorite toys?

The People

Who were your favorite teachers in school?

Who was your first crush?

Has a stranger ever changed your life?

The Work

What were your first jobs as a kid?

What school subjects interested you?

When did you first learn about the job or career you currently have?

The Play

What music represents different eras in your life?

What were your favorite games at recess?

What was your most memorable vacation?

The Not

Pick any of the other Lifelines. Is there anything you did or did not do in any of these areas that bring up feelings of regret?

Look for Meaningful Moments

You can pick almost any moment to write about, but there are certain events that were sure to be more meaningful you and do more to express your personality, your values, or the significance of your experiences.  Visit Finding Stories With Meaning for some ideas.

II. Spend More Time Pre-Writing

Once you have the kernel of an idea to work with, the next step is NOT to start writing.  The next step is to spend A LOT of time pre-writing.  The pre-writing part is critical for two reasons.  First, the pre-writing process is how you gather far more material and ideas and information that you will ever be able to use. You shut down your inner-critic and spend time playing with the idea.  See how many details about the memory you can come up with. What was the weather like? What sounds do you remember? Were there any particular smells associated with the event? What were people wearing or eating? What was the texture of things you touched.  Gather as much detail as you can, knowing full well that much of it won’t make it into your story. The process of being open to the memory, however, will invite other details to emerge that you might have missed.  If you are writing about your grandmother, see if you can find some of her face cream and see how it smells. Look at old photographs. Make lists of details you would use to describe her.  Collect it all, like a magpie, grabbing any tiny scrap you can. The process should feel playful and fun. You may end up using only about 15% – 25% of the information you gather but it won’t be wasted! You will have a stockpile from which you can choose only the very best details.

The other reason prewriting is critical is that it helps you figure out what you think about the event and why it’s important.  While you are playing with pre-writing, the idea germinates in a very creative, organic, uncensored way (see The Creative Response, especially the section on Incubation). Usually, you will know when you are done pre-writing because you will have finally figured out what you want to say.  When I was writing the biography Coming About for my client, Jack Jouett, I would spend a lot of time pre-writing before I ever started writing the chapter.  Although I had transcripts of interviews with him about the basic events, I would flip through photographs or memorabilia from that time in his life. I would do research on the Internet about what life was like in the decade I was writing about. I would listen to music, find out what movies were popular, look up clothing styles. I found out what other historical events were in the news at the time. Eventually, I would get to the point where I knew how and where to begin the chapter.  I might never use most of the information or research in the chapter, but it would be foundation for all the visible parts of the story.

For more information . . .

There are also a number of Barbara’s blog posts that talk about the mechanics of writing.  Check out the The Intersection Blog in the left column, or follow the links here:

Finding A Way To Get Started

In theory, most of us think it would be really great to write about our lives, our thoughts or our memories.  But let’s face it, thinking about writing is one thing.  Doing it, well….  All sorts of interesting emotional stuff shows up, including a vision of a particularly mean English teacher we had in high school and her wicked red pen.  We feel nervous and anxious.  We doubt our abilities.  We decide that we need to scrub the entire kitchen floor – right now! A primary step in writing is to calm down.  Really. We have to trick ourselves out of the nervousness and anxiety that accompanies the creative process to benefit from the creativity itself.   Read more…

For more information from some pretty fabulous writers, refer to the Story section in From My Bookshelf.