How to Start: Give Your Ideas Time to Breathe

It can be hard to start a story. Just how do you transform an idea into words, then transform those words into a plot? Ell Angelina, NaNoWriMo participant, shares the process she goes through to bring a story from conception to the page:

While I don’t like going for long periods of time without writing, I do prefer to let ideas age like a fine wine (or, since I don’t drink wine but am fond of smoothies, like an unripe banana). 

If an idea stays with me for years, it must be worth exploring. No, it won’t be the same story that I envisioned when I first came up with the idea, but that’s okay. That’s good. I will see flaws I was blind to years earlier, or be able to combine two good ideas into a great one.

After I’ve decided to write something, I plot in many different ways. Sometimes I make a snap decision to make everything up as I go, other times I take a more methodical approach. 

For NaNo in November, I tend to finish up my current writing projects in September. Then I start to plot out the story properly, finally allowing it out of the safe space in my brain. I create timelines, advanced character sheets, write an outline from start to finish (but with plenty of room for improvisation along the way), and research settings through most of October. Usually I’m done a week or so before November, so the last few days are spent looking over everything again, fine tuning the smallest details.

Once November 1st comes around, my story has been in the works for years, and the last few weeks have been nothing but a slow build-up to when I finally get to start writing it. When the clock finally strikes midnight I’m so excited I can barely even contain myself. I’m literally counting the minutes until I can finally put my story into words.

That’s how I love to start writing. To want it so badly you can think of nothing else.

Ell Angelina has participated in NaNoWriMo since 2 006 and isn’t quitting anytime soon. She works at a museum, often fulfilling the cliché of a bored receptionist that spends her work days writing a novel. Since 2014 she’s written several prize-winning short stories, been part of a short story collection and made several attempts at getting a full-length novel published (which she likes to think means that she’s tenacious, and not that her writing is bad).

Top photo by Flickr user Lex Photographic.