Scrivener

Scrivener is the platform for what I will describe here. The enjoyment is the double pleasure of finding a new idea, and then developing it into some new object, a post, a poem, a short story, or longer work. Finding the idea is fun, anything can lead to it: a face in the street, a dream, something one has read elsewhere, some news, a headline, a few words heard by chance, a song, a cloud. 

Inspiration and imagination mingle, most of the times without consequence, but sometimes it “clicks”: I want to write something about this, I wish to develop this, even if it is a tenuous thread, not even a thread, a few images falling together on the table. This is similar to Tarot, it may have meaning, or not.

Give a shape

Once the idea is forming, the development takes place, slowly, very slowly at first. Often it does not lead anywhere, when it does, the pleasure slowly turns into some work of sort, one feels the need to create, to give a shape to this ghost, a feeling almost carnal. If it is a story, some sequence of scenes may take place, successive snapshot of interaction between beings that are not yet characters, but promises:

“They” may happen, “they” may transform into something close to being alive, to loving, to suffering, to fighting the dragons – or whatever. This phase is troublesome as much as pleasurable, one has other demands on one’s time, on imagination, on creativity. Yet the idea survives, and if after a few days it is still there, somehow vibrating, pulsating, then it may happen.

Characters before plot

The next step is to jot down a few “facts”, perhaps to sketch what “she” may look like, what “he” wishes to be. Characters come well before the plot, even if, as is often the case, some kind of story line starts the idea. “Events” are the primordial soup from which the characters, if it works, finally emerge. At this point memories come in, perhaps other dreams, that start accumulating further subsidiary ideas around the central one.

This can be very exciting and pleasurable, although not without risk. The main risk is to exaggerate the value of the original idea: is there really material for a story, or is it mere “fluff”, some spurious dust that leads nowhere, a kind of mirage?

Even for a short story, there has to be something compelling enough to maintain the interest of the writer, and then, of course, of the reader, even if hypothetical. The transition, once one is convinced this is worth pursuing, although one does not know how far, requires some effort, perhaps the skeleton of a plan, some more elaborate notes about the heroes, or villains, or creatures.

An early version of a plot, may grow out of these character sketches: this is also the time to identify the prevailing feelings that will drive the participants: love (always), anger, pity, cruelty, evil, courage, or their opposites, and the background to their actions, or predicament. This stage may demand its own research, what will make the story, as it develops, interesting, and even realistic, if this is the effect one wants to achieve.

Architecture

The “project” starts taking shape, at least as something one is no longer tempted to throw away, not without some thoughts. Scrivener is invaluable in helping putting some architecture around the material already gathered. Incidentally, those sketches should often be kept, as potential material for future endeavours. If the project takes roots, then the initial pleasure turns into something more serious, more insistent, and finally an obsession into making the object real, a firm plot, characters who are no longer cardboard mockups but human beings. By then one should be aware of the approximate length of the work thus undertaken: short story, some long hand work, or a novel.

About Scrivener