Comments on: The Anatomy and Creation of a Story Pt. 2 http://storytellersunplugged.com/blog/2009/11/30/the-anatomy-and-creation-of-a-story-pt-2/ Where Words and Imagination Meet Sun, 13 May 2012 01:21:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: janetberliner http://storytellersunplugged.com/blog/2009/11/30/the-anatomy-and-creation-of-a-story-pt-2/comment-page-1/#comment-294 janetberliner Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:32:07 +0000 http://storytellersunplugged.com/?p=527#comment-294 Good one, as always. Sorry about the family problem(s). J. Good one, as always. Sorry about the family problem(s). J.

]]> By: David Niall Wilson http://storytellersunplugged.com/blog/2009/11/30/the-anatomy-and-creation-of-a-story-pt-2/comment-page-1/#comment-292 David Niall Wilson Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:17:49 +0000 http://storytellersunplugged.com/?p=527#comment-292 Yeah, Sully, this is just a hash of MY method, and as I said, it changes from story to story. This time, for instance, it's like a themed anthology with no theme - a two author challenge to write a unicorn story - but to make it "real" and meaningful. Justine Musk must do the same, and I am fairly certain she and I will go about it in absolutely different ways. This story FEELS more like a novel in that it's getting the sort of extra thought and treatment a novel would in the early stages... I hope it lives up to its own hype, in the end... D Yeah, Sully, this is just a hash of MY method, and as I said, it changes from story to story. This time, for instance, it’s like a themed anthology with no theme – a two author challenge to write a unicorn story – but to make it “real” and meaningful.

Justine Musk must do the same, and I am fairly certain she and I will go about it in absolutely different ways. This story FEELS more like a novel in that it’s getting the sort of extra thought and treatment a novel would in the early stages…

I hope it lives up to its own hype, in the end…

D

]]> By: wayneallensallee http://storytellersunplugged.com/blog/2009/11/30/the-anatomy-and-creation-of-a-story-pt-2/comment-page-1/#comment-289 wayneallensallee Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:27:39 +0000 http://storytellersunplugged.com/?p=527#comment-289 With me, the story spins from the event also. Once, I was in Champaign-Urbana and I witnessed an incident (not a bad one) in front of a local liquor store. It took me five years to realize what needed to be told. So even though I was doing what you were, Dave, building the large, lonely home, yet not having anything worthwhile on the walls past my own recollections. --Wayne With me, the story spins from the event also. Once, I was in Champaign-Urbana and I witnessed an incident (not a bad one) in front of a local liquor store. It took me five years to realize what needed to be told. So even though I was doing what you were, Dave, building the large, lonely home, yet not having anything worthwhile on the walls past my own recollections.

–Wayne

]]> By: Thomas Sullivan http://storytellersunplugged.com/blog/2009/11/30/the-anatomy-and-creation-of-a-story-pt-2/comment-page-1/#comment-287 Thomas Sullivan Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:47:20 +0000 http://storytellersunplugged.com/?p=527#comment-287 I'm betting you'll find more authors who agree with how you define the problem or the need in a short story than you will the defining of a solution or a method to create a solution. But then I know you aren't trying to state hard and fast rules about creativity (which then just beg to be broken). Getting to know a character is also my favored way of "beginning," though this tends to happen more in novels for me than in short stories. Very often I'll spin a story out of an event or a gimmick which then suggests a character whose quirks will complicate the path to a resolution. Michael Crichton used to do it rather well, if formulaically in novels, gathering sets of characters whose personal conflicts created mischief in the plot. E.g. a character who goes blank with flashing lights and is inserted in a nuclear countdown/malfunction where he'll be incapable of acting owing to flashing lights. Or the grand interplay of who do you want to be trapped in an elevator with, or upside down in a sinking ship, etc. I suspect that those characters were born of need from a plot situation. Thanks for another sterling catalyst, Davey... -- Sully I’m betting you’ll find more authors who agree with how you define the problem or the need in a short story than you will the defining of a solution or a method to create a solution. But then I know you aren’t trying to state hard and fast rules about creativity (which then just beg to be broken).

Getting to know a character is also my favored way of “beginning,” though this tends to happen more in novels for me than in short stories. Very often I’ll spin a story out of an event or a gimmick which then suggests a character whose quirks will complicate the path to a resolution. Michael Crichton used to do it rather well, if formulaically in novels, gathering sets of characters whose personal conflicts created mischief in the plot. E.g. a character who goes blank with flashing lights and is inserted in a nuclear countdown/malfunction where he’ll be incapable of acting owing to flashing lights. Or the grand interplay of who do you want to be trapped in an elevator with, or upside down in a sinking ship, etc. I suspect that those characters were born of need from a plot situation. Thanks for another sterling catalyst, Davey…

– Sully

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