Working Through the Concept

April 19th, 2008 | by smokingpen |

Returning to the series of entries on writing, this week we are going to look at methods of working through the concept. In this case, we are going to continue looking at Cassandra West or the longer title, The Stories and Mis-Adventures of Cassandra West. In many cases, working with a title helps to focus where the book is going to go. In this context, the title is used as a focusing medium.

One aspect of writing a story is that the story, or series of stories, has to have a coherent direction. In this area you should be thinking along the lines of a record or CD (depending on your age) and the music that is on that album. The music will have common elements, theme, rhythm, beat, and melody.

Because coherence is essential the use of plot and outlines becomes necessary to ensure that coherence to core story principles are adhered to. What that means is that you, as the writer, or going figure out what is meant to happen with your protagonist in order for him or her to accomplish the principle elements of the plot. In Cassandra West’s case, she is an 11 year old girl who wants to return to her 11 year old body, but has to a) figure out why she was pulled into an adult body; and b) what she has to do to get back to being 11.

Because I have two different things that need to be accomplished, the first is a discovery of reason and the second is a discovery of action, Cassandra is split between finding out the “Why” and also finding out the “How”. As a result, determining which element is important at any given moment in the story is… of itself… important.

Since I wrote a one-off short dealing with Cassandra West and Charles Darwin, this question was important. Why would Cassandra end up at a cave? What is in it for her? Does she find out information during this visit that will help her accomplish one, or both, of her goals?

The story is only a portion of a larger work, you don’t find out the answer….

However, in the conceptualization stage of the story gathering all of the ideas and sparks of ideas you can is a good first step in the process. So, back to Cassandra West, I know several things that I want to see happen. These include:

  • Cassandra is ripped out of her body
  • Magic is brought into the old west
  • The kinds of wood used by different people is important
  • Wizards, witches, and other magical creatures, to some extent, are real
  • Instead of Sword and Sorcery I want to deal with Guns and Sorcery which makes this story different
  • Guns can be magical
  • Most guns are not magical
  • Cassandra has to decide whether or not, in the end, she returns to her former life or accepts the life she has been given.
  • AND reincarnation is an important aspect to the story

This is not a complete list… many aspects of the list are meant to work across different stories (collection of short stories with a coherent theme) with each story dealing with an aspect of the overall theme.

Next week I will expand on this theme….

click to go to part two

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