Story Systems, Part 2/5

In my previous blog post on this topic, I
explained how stories are analogous to computer simulations, in a way I thought
might help people who think like me. In this post I explain how to set up the
“initial conditions” for a new story.

I vividly remember trying to plot a full
novel using different post-its for different characters. I wrote up drafts for
the first scenes of each character, and they stayed on my wall for a month. I
didn’t get any further with it, because I hadn’t written those scenes. I just
had my initial conditions, but I hadn’t let the simulation run. Once I wrote up
those scenes, the next steps became apparent.

What do good initial conditions look like?
To me, it’s notes on plot, character, theme and setting.

(Research is often a big one for me, and a
big competitive advantage: few people do the initial-condition due diligence
required to start writing something heavily researched.)

What do I know about these characters? Who
are they, were they, etc? Where will this story take place and why? What is
going to happen? What do I think this story is about?

I answer as many of these questions as I
can before I’ll get to typing out anything of the first draft.

I don’t see how someone can write a good
story without knowing more about the characters than appears on the page. When
it’s done, all a reader’s questions must be implicitly answered by the
resulting text. Better to answer as many up front so as to minimise work later
on.

And this isn’t a rigid, systematic
approach: I don’t know if your story takes place on Earth, if your characters
are human or a collection of bitter shoeboxes, or if the plot takes the path of
a fractal. There is still infinite scope within this methodology. After all, there
are many types of reactors: plug-flow, continuous stirred-tank, semibatch,
catalytic. They’re different shapes, and mix different reagents, but they all
contain reactions and operate on the same basic principles, which underpin the
great machines and chains thereof that lead raw material to product, from
beginning to end.

You may want to add “structure” notes, but
nothing irks me more these days than cleverly structured stories: lists, FAQs,
whatever. I try to avoid anything that reminds me that this thing didn’t really
happen, and anything so calculated and transparent just never resonates as much
as it could.

(Side note: I think list stories sell so
well because readers know when the thing is going to end. I have to imagine
they’re written for people who can’t wait to stop reading.)

And if you’re anything like me, you most
certainly will not make any notes on
genre or audience, what market you will send the story to when it’s done. I
mean, you may wish to add certain definite components to the initial conditions
if you’re writing for a specifically themed submission—but anything more
specific and you can correct it later.

So, when you write a bit about the plot, or
the setting, more characters appear. They need characterised. Details of
backstory appear. They need added to the plot. They have settings. Those
settings have characters. And so on and round and round.

How do you know when you’ve done enough?
Because nothing more occurs to you. It sounds, through my outline above, like
it will keep going indefinitely—but background characters don’t need as much
work. Some scenes take place in the same setting, and so on. There are definite
limits. A story itself, no matter how big, is finite.

Next time I’ll write about re-drafting