How do I put together a story? I’m kind of like Aesop in the old “shoot from the hip” style. I have an idea, or am given a topic. I let it germinate for a few days. I think about it, but I try not to think about it too hard and I don’t try to direct it in any way…just let whatever comes to mind show up. I should, but rarely ever have, written these ideas down…in no particular order.

At length, I have a basic idea of what my story is about, who’s in it and roughly what is going to happen. I then sit down and literally blast it into Word as fast as I can download it out of my head. I don’t care about structure, flow, spelling, grammar, or even if things are out of sequence. I just try to get all the highlights, key dialogue, imagery and action out of my head and on to paper, (into the document).

I then spend the next several days, or weeks cleaning it up, filling in gaps, finding the right words. Edit pass…after edit pass…after edit pass. I use version control; after each pass I do a save as and create a new document, so that my previous versions are still available to me. This lets me feel freer to chop things out, or mix things up, because I can always go back and retrieve discarded pieces if I want. I haven’t written very many stories and I should point out that the story I set out to write and the story I ended up with were rarely the same.

I would much prefer a more structured approach. I was just introduced to the triple “O” outline in level two. I think this has great potential use for me. I also am greatly impressed by the way some of the others here in this thread develop and focus on characters prior to giving much thought to the story line. I think that’s a fantastic idea…just never occurred to me, my characters just kind of develop in front of me as the story evolves.

So, how do I put together a story? So far, I’d have to say by dumb luck and determination.