Building a story

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A place to talk through and discuss our thoughts
So now that I've had to write lots of fact text for school, with very plain language, I've started to crave more creative and floral text, so to speak. But as we all know, just writing out of the blue without any ideas is hard - at least for most of us. So I wanted to ask you all...

How do you build your stories? Where do you start? Do you have an idea ready, a setting, or where does it bloom? And how do you make sure that it's rolling into a direction you like? Do you write lists or mind maps?

My NaNo last year fell into a trap, where the story didn't feel right to me in the end, the ideas I had at the beginning of the month just fell flat by the time I was actually arriving to the main point. I'm also hoping to write in Finnish this time to make things easier for myself - and also to train myself to write more Finnish text as here I write in English.

All help is appreciated! ♥
 
My friend gave me a book called Take Off Your Pants!: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker that I used for my 2019 NaNo that was really helpful. I ended up outlining a fair chunck, from small synopsis of scenes to point form beat by beat notes. The book helped me flesh out character motivations and keep track of things. It isn't perfect, but for someone who has never done outlining it helps.

And I did start with an idea of the main characters, a vague overview of the world, the enemy, and a antagonist big bad type character before I outlined anything.

I wouldn't call anything I was doing inspired but my goal was mostly to write a very queer sceinece fantasy, mech, romance, adventure story with gay, bi, and trans characters that had absolutely nothing to do with coming out, gay panic, or any of those mainstream gay media tropes that drive me nuts (I really do not want or need more coming out stories I just want gay characters doing the same shit straight people do in stories!) So I set out to write that.
 
I like to start with characters, plural. A good character is defined by their relationships to other characters. People are networked like that. So you can start with a particular type of relationship that you want to explore, and build characters based on that, and then throw in a plot twist that challenges this relationship. When I have a set of characters that interest me, usually that ends up generating a bunch of possibilities for where the story could go, based on typical patterns for how people with those characteristics interact.

In general, the way you construct a story is that you have a setting to start with, which can be original or pre-existing, but it is the foundation for the story. Then you create characters to populate that setting, and they are like the frame of a house. Then you invent a plot for those characters to struggle against, which is the facade that you see from the street. When the reader reads a story, they approach it in the opposite direction. First they consider the plot, if it's interesting and worth reacting to. If so, then they decide if the characters are worth caring about. If so, and only if so, do they start to think about the setting.

Setting -> Characters -> Plot
Thinking <- Caring <- Reacting

In a quick-and-dirty short story, very little time is spent on the setting, so it all comes down to the characters and plot. Good characters with a dumb plot will never get noticed. A good plot with unlikeable characters will just turn people off. A good plot with good characters will make for a good story, and if it's based in an interesting setting, it will be an even greater story.

So it is said that when an author has compelling characters and a compelling plot, he will write 100 manuscripts and publish 100 novels. If he has compelling characters but the plot is weak, he will win or lose by chance. If they are both terrible, then everything he writes will be trash (and he should work for Disney). But if he has great characters and a great plot, and also has knowledge of the sky and the ground, then he will never fail in his entire career.

Take what I say with a grain of salt. I've never done NaNo. I don't have the motivation to stick to a story for that long (to be a NaNo machine?) unless I'm writing for a partner on a roleplaying website. Then all I care about is writing something my partner will enjoy. Maybe that's the equivalent of the old public speaking advice to speak as if you're talking to just one person.