Episode 60 – It’s A Brain Storm!
This week the Dead Robots discuss the topic of brainstorming a story. You can do it on your own, or you can do it with a friend (insert your own innuendo here), but either way you have to start thinking about your story somewhere, and brainstorming is where it happens. So settle in, relax, and enjoy!
I’d like to write a Christmas story. That’s about as far as my brainstorming has gone on it. I haven’t even decided on genre (or lack thereof) yet.
I find it very hard to brain storm except for having just a general idea at the very start. I’ve never really done brainstorming at the start, I sorta do it while writing. I start off with a place, a time, and event or action and then just write one long continous mostly a run on sentence of stuff that comes out of my mind until it roughly hits 3-5000 words. Then when my brains starts to drivel up, I stop go back and read what I wrote (no real edits/grammar/spelling etc at that point) and attempt to seperate paragraphs and ideas. If something doesn’t fit right, then I make a note of it in red (word) and then that becomes the next section I start writing on and fleshing out. I gotta get the ideas out then can form a story around the ideas as the come out on paper.
No matter how or when you do it, it still has to be done. I like to get as much of it done as I can at the start, but there’s definitely something to be said for getting into the story hipdeep and finding your way afterward.
Hi dead robots,
I just “discovered” you guys this last week and subsequently downloaded all your shows. You now sit triumphant, atop my podcast stack. I love this stuff. Cheers, for the good ideas.
I’ll often start with a scene or an image in my head. That’s how I got started on my ‘Henri’s Pit’ story that is currently sitting in the login-only forum. That started with an image of my protagonist walking down an alley and into the bar. I scribbled the scene down quickly as soon as it came to me, then sat down and figured out what I could do with it. That scene ended up being completely cut from the story in the end, but that’s how it started.
With this one, I was able to plop it into a setting it’d more or less worked out already for an earlier project that fell through, so most of the world-building brainstorming had been done well ahead of time.
As for plot, I pretty much had the whole 4-part structure of the story, and the resolution worked out before I went back to that first scene I’d written.
So yea, lots of brainstorming has been key for me. Maybe not as the seed of the idea, but it couldn’t have become what it did without a lot of forthought.
Good show, guys.
Cheers,
Cam
lorenhops, I’m glad you found us. And, I’m glad you downloaded all of our episodes, though I can’t imagine listening to all that now. *shudders*
I’m planning on putting a lot of our earlier episodes into a direct-download archive in the near future, so getting them through the RSS stream now was a good idea.
Cam, some stories have a strange and twisted road to take to get on the page, so I know what you’re saying.
For Ry: Hey buddy, it appears that at least one guy at work is part of your audience (a.k.a. me). Anyway, you’re a natural at hosting and as you are considered our resident logophile at work, I’m not surprised. Throughout this episode, you and your peers talked about the idea that brainstorming typically is not an individual exercise and I agree. I know that you are averse to sharing too much about your writings but I would like to offer myself as someone you can bounce ideas off when you feel the need. We can do it over vanilla gum and coffee or beer; it’s your choice although I believe that you know my preference.
Ryan doesn’t need you! I’m his friend! Me! You can’t have him!