A Little About my Process

To start off this little blog, I thought I’d begin with the basics. What is my creative process when writing? The initial spark of creation, inspiration, is difficult to pin down. I can’t describe how I get story ideas, because it’s rarely straightforward. But often, they just come from idle daydreams. Interesting imagery, a thought experiment, or just a feeling I want to capture could all be the seeds to a story.

Often, these initial ideas are very vague, and don’t count as a story just yet. Sometimes they don’t become a story at all. But they have to have some sort of innate appeal to me- something that keeps me coming back them. Let’s take three examples. In the first one, I picture abstract blue shapes glacially pushing together over mesmerizing, crescendo-ing synth music. Two people are connecting their minds via a new technology. Isolated in the artic, they find a deep connection as they discover the underlying processes of how the other thinks. In the second idea, a man discovers that he isn’t who he thought he was. He is actually a cover identity for a highly-trained terrorist. Who is he? The original personality, or the fully-formed cover? In the third idea, two high school students attend a cool school where one of their fellow students is secretly a princess.

Each of these is (or was) interesting to me in a different way. The first is aesthetically fascinating, the second intellectually stimulating, and the third was (at one point) just fun escapism. Now none of those factors alone determines which story will be promising. The only way to find out is to start refining. The next question is, what’s the story? It’s useful to consider two factors at this stage: conflict and framing. Conflict, unsurprisingly, is the central tension of the story. What two forces are opposing each other? None of the ideas I’ve presented so far have this yet. Idea #2 might seem like it has a conflict because it presents a question, but what two forces are competing through a narrative? So far, I’ve just asked a philosophical question to the audience. Now, that does give us a head start, but there’s more work to be done. So let’s get to it.

In Idea #1, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. When working on it, I had some idea that someone would wind up fused with the machine in a tragic accident or last-minute sacrifice. So what conflict prompts this? I envisioned this strange computer machine being housed in an artic base. Perhaps the conflict is one of survival. The base suffers an accident and starts to fall apart, but the computer system can stop the downfall. The problem is that with the damage, anyone connecting to the computer will not be able to free themselves. Okay, we have a start- the people in the base vs. the disaster tearing it apart. The second idea could have a number of potential conflicts. I envisioned some sort of conflict between the two personalities. Perhaps both are fighting for control over the body. There’s the conflict- who gets the body? In the third idea, there’s a hint of a conflict in that there is a secret. Why is a princess hiding in a high school? The answer could provide us some direction. But if we wanted a real simple conflict really fast, here’s an easy one: some bad guys are after the princess, and our protagonists stumble into the plot. The conflict is a simple good guys vs. bad guys.

Next, the framing. By framing, I mean how the story is told. Does the audience really know what’s going on from the beginning? What do they know, and when do they know it? Often, this can be pretty straightforward. We take our protagonist, and the audience knows what they know. When the protagonist discovers something, so does the audience. In fact, this will be mostly true for all three of these ideas. But there’s a little bit more to framing. Where do we start the story? How is it told? For the first story, I want to open on my initial aesthetic- this abstract blue imagery. This would have been a short film, by the way. It would be slow and atmospheric at first, before roughly transitioning into the cold, harsh artic base. There, we would take a more narrative structure. The protagonist goes about his work in the base, introducing us more concretely to the technology. Then things go wrong and either he or a loved one has to make a sacrifice. 

In the second idea, we would begin with a fairly ordinary situation. Like a day at the office. But then, our protagonist discovers he has fighting abilities he didn’t know he had. Other strange things start happening. Somehow, he has to come into conflict with the other persona. How might this happen? Perhaps it is being triggered. But it can’t just resurface, otherwise the cover personality- our protagonist- would just be thrown away. So maybe someone is trying to partly access the original, terrorist personality. Here’s what it might look like: as our protagonist starts experiencing different events, we cut to him explaining things to a therapist. Then suddenly, he realizes the therapist knows more than she should. It is then revealed that he is actually being held in an interrogation cell, and the therapist is actually an interrogator. She wants the knowledge the original personality has, but she doesn’t want to activate it. Our protagonist has a choice- activate the original personality to free himself, or forget all these incredible skills he learned and remain captive. Here the framing is more complex: a series of scenes that are happening in the protagonist’s head, mixed in with some real events.

In the final idea, we’d keep things pretty simple as well. Follow the two protagonists, set up how cool the school is, and then have them uncover the secret that a princess is going there. Then some bad guys show up. Simple, nothing else needed. 

Framing is important to consider because it affects how the audience experiences the story. We could tell the first idea in a very dry way. We could start with a dry explanation of the technology, but that doesn’t convey the feeling I wanted. In the second, we could tell everything from the perspective of the interrogator, but that removes a lot of the mystery. It also makes the conflict of the personalities less immediate. If I want to feel the dilemma of the character, I should probably experience his breakdown of reality. So let’s show his point of view, and a series of scenes oddly cutting together. This was also a short film idea of mine, for the record. In the third, we could show the villains plotting early on, but I want to have a sense of discovery- of the protagonists, and the audience, discovering something extraordinary. So let’s just follow the protagonists.

I should note that none of this process is so clean and straightforward. This is all happening pretty quickly, and sloppily at first. Some of these considerations seem so obvious that I don’t have to think about them. But at some point, I should go back over them and double check my intuitions. Are these really the best choices? Am I achieving the effect that I’m intending? Usually, I don’t have any major errors at this stage, but one shouldn’t take anything for granted. Major changes down the road might be necessary depending on what comes next.

From here, I’d generally move on to early worldbuilding. Often, I will actually do this as part of my initial idea. But not always. At this stage, however, I don’t want to go further without establishing something about how the world works. Why? Because the rules of the world will dictate how the story should go. If I have a world where remote control soldier robots are common, then why would anyone fight face to face? Why would people with access to automatic weapons use swords? In short, how does the conflict get resolved? I have to know the rules before I know how the game can be won. 

So, Idea #1- why is the base in the artic? What is this machine? Why does it control the base and let people connect their minds? Why are both necessary? Okay, it’s a research base of some kind, and highly reliant on computers. Sharing perspectives and coming to a deep understanding are important themes to my idea, so maybe that’s part of the point of the computer and research base. Perhaps it is a massive computer that needs to be cooled by its artic surroundings, designed to make complicated abstract mathematical concepts intuitively easy to human minds. Thus, a complicated computer can interface with human minds. As a side effect, it can also connect two minds together. Since it probably has to control its cooling, that’s why it has control over base functions. It’s tenuous, but it might work.

For Idea #2, we’ve already done a lot of the work. There is a technology that can create a secondary personality while submerging the original personality until a certain trigger activates the first one. However, a bridge can be made so that the personalities can glean some information from the other. However, if too much of a connection is made, the original personality will subsume the cover identity. We already invented the rules, but we should take note of them here. Any plot point we write can’t break them just for our convenience. But this is a good example of how these steps aren’t necessarily done in a chronological order.

The third idea will need a lot of work, however. Why in the world is there a princess at a high school? A princess of what? And what are the bad guys after? A ransom? Or is this an assassination? Well, I don’t really want to use a real world country, as that might detract from the simple escapism. So let’s make up a country. Okay, we have a princess of a made-up country. Why is she attending high school? That’s going to be pretty tricky to justify. Well, she’s probably not doing what the royal family actually wants. Is she on bad terms with them? Is she in hiding? Perhaps so. Now, we do have another problem. Our protagonists are living in a fictional country. That could be fine, but it could be harder to slip into their shoes. Maybe the reason that the high school is cool and interesting is that it’s in this strange new country- a country that is strange and new to our protagonists as well as the reader. So our protagonists come from the “real world.” But if the real world doesn’t have this made up country, how do they go to it?

By now, it should be obvious that idea #3 eventually became Time Gate. This isn’t an exact recounting of its creation, but an oversimplification for the purpose of demonstration.

Now we can refine the conflict, framing, and worldbuilding into an outline. But mixed into these first three elements should be one last crucial ingredient: the characters. As always, this likely would happen alongside the other steps. So, what kind of character would be best to convey the ideas, moods, and themes that I want in my story? Unfortunately, here, the weakness in my first story starts to show. My initial ideas and the conflict I developed don’t give me a lot of ideas for a compelling character. Characters often need a variety of traits, some goals, and hopefully, a unique voice. They should also serve an important role in advancing the story. Now, these aren’t hard and fast rules- different stories have different requirements. So what do we need for Story #1? Well, it’s hard to say. I want to express something about minds understanding each other beyond just exchanging memories, thoughts, and beliefs. I also want some sort of sacrifice to overcome a survival situation. What kind of character would be compelling in this scenario? Maybe someone who has difficulty relinquishing control or letting down his guard, but is ultimately altruistic. He has to finally make himself mentally vulnerable in order to save others? That’s thin, but we can work with it.

Okay, story #2. We know that in the end, our protagonist has to be tempted to unleash the original persona. What kind of person would be tempted by that? Well, probably someone who feels powerless in their life. A-ha! We already said our protagonist would discover he has unexpected fighting prowess. Well, how did he discover this? Perhaps, in his put-upon daily life, he has a co-worker who constantly harasses him, and at one point our protagonist suddenly snaps. Then, he can first demonstrate his fighting skill. And start to realize that something’s wrong. The pieces are coming together! But there’s more. We said that he would figure out that his therapist was actually his interrogator. So he’s probably smart as well. So we have a powerless, intelligent character wishing for meaning an adventure (another temptation to ignore the interrogator and embrace his new skills). Sure, it’s not the most original character, but is that a problem?

Here, my philosophy might depart from the norm. My guiding principle is always: what best serves the story? In this case, the story is mostly propelled through mystery, philosophical questions, and sci-fi tech. That’s a lot for our short film. Sure, we want to flesh out the character if we have any extra space in the script, but I don’t think we have to shove in too much. Unless of course, we can do it while advancing the plot or expositing additional information. That’s another goal I have for most of my scenes: try to do at least two things at once. Advance the plot and characterize our heroes. Explain the world and develop a theme. Reveal a twist and give a character a turning point. The more the better, assuming you do them all well of course.

For Time Gate, there was a lot of character development to do. It coincides with a lot of changes and additions to world-building and plot. So going in-depth on how those characters were developed would get a bit too complicated. Let’s just say that I had some internal conflicts to create, and a lot of personality to flesh out so that we could really get inside at least one of their heads. Perhaps another time we’ll revisit the topic.

At this point, we want to nail down an outline for our stories. We’ve got a conflict for our characters to confront, and we’re telling it through a purposeful framework in order to get a specific experience in our audience. Let’s figure out more specifically how it would look. I often write it down in terms of plot beats or scenes. Short, quick descriptions. Let’s take idea #2. I might write something like this on a loose sheet of paper:

Office, CD – stolen by Bully 
Confronts Bully – discovers fighting skill
Switch scene – another provocation – another punch
Therapy – it just happened – control your impulses, but tell me about them
Meet the trainer – can you go through with it?
Full training – getting into it
Therapist – stop it – tell me about the woman – who are you?
Embracing the trainer – one last appeal – enjoying the escape
Ripped into the real world – you were a cover
Give us the information – no, I can escape! – You won’t exist
Does he go back in?
He does – tense wait
Gives interrogator the name, still is himself
Is let go – is innocent
Coda with CD

Okay, that’s probably a lot of gibberish. Sadly, this is how I actually work. So let me translate this into something intelligible for you.

Office, CD – stolen by bully
“We begin in the office. Our protagonist has a CD of an obscure band. An office bully snatches it and starts mocking him for his odd tastes.” As a side note, I would try to make the CD have a name that relates to the themes of the work. In the script I wound up writing, I think I chose “Ego Alien.” I would also like to imply that music is an escape for our protagonist. Let’s give him a name at this point. Let’s call him Jeremy.

Confronts Bully – discovers fighting skill
“Jeremy confronts the bully who is holding his CD. Jeremy at first asks politely, but the Bully crosses the line. Jeremy lashes out, with a surprisingly expert strike.”

Switch scene – another provocation – another punch
“We suddenly cut to a different scene, starting to hint that something isn’t right. Something else provokes Jeremy, causing him to lash out again. This time, it’s a bit more experimental. He’s testing his newfound skills.”

Therapy – it just happened – control your impulses, but tell me about them
“We suddenly cut to Jeremy in therapy. He’s explaining that he somehow just knew how to fight. The Therapist advises him to remain calm and control his impulses, but asks Jeremy to tell her more about his experiences.”

Meet the trainer – can you go through with it?
“We cut to Jeremy meeting his Handler. Unbeknownst to him or the audience, this is the person who initiated him into the terrorist plan. The Handler asks Jeremy if he can go through with this. Jeremy is immediately intrigued.”

Full training – getting into it
“We have a montage of Jeremy training with the Handler. He’s having a great time and feeling alive.”

Therapist – stop it – tell me about the woman – who are you?
“The montage is interrupted by the Therapist. She tells Jeremy to stop getting lost in these delusions. She is curious, however, about Jeremy’s Handler. Jeremy finds the interest in her suspicious. He starts to realize the incongruities in time – the cuts between the scenes. He realizes that something is odd about the Therapist. He asks her who she really is.”

Embracing the trainer – one last appeal – enjoying the escape
“When the Therapist tries to play dumb, Jeremy fully commits to his memories of his training. The Therapist tries once more to get Jeremy to stop, but it’s clear he prefers this other life.”

Ripped into the real world – you were a cover
“Jeremy is suddenly in an interrogation room. The stimulation to his brain has ended. The Therapist, actually an Interrogator, explains that Jeremy is just a cover for a terrorist. He has been remembering the terrorist’s memories.” 

Give us the information – no, I can escape! – You won’t exist
“The Interrogator makes a request for information about the Handler. Jeremy refuses, going into denial. He thinks he can access enough of his other training to free himself. The Interrogator tells him that he will destroy his current personality and instead release the original. Jeremy, essentially, will die.”

Does he go back in?
“The Interrogator offers him one chance. Cooperate, go under, and get us the information on the Handler. Jeremy considers.”

He does – tense wait
“Jeremy agrees, and goes under. This time, we don’t see his point of view. We only see the Handler waiting. Who will wake up? Jeremy, or the Terrorist?”

Gives interrogator the name, still is himself
“Jeremy wakes back up with the information the Interrogator wanted. He is still devastated by the truth, but he cooperates.”

Is let go – is innocent
“The Interrogator lets Jeremy go free. He is confused, but the Interrogator explains that the Jeremy personality didn’t do anything wrong, and the terrorist personality has been destroyed, so he can’t be held accountable. Jeremy is innocent. This is small comfort to him.”

Coda with CD
“The short ends with Jeremy picking up his CD in the real world. One last shot with him and his former escape begs the question- will anything ever be the same?”

In reality, this wouldn’t have been my first outline. One of the most important parts of creating a story is to identify problems and invent solutions. I will often start an outline, only to stop and realize that a later part of the story needs more setup. So, I will come up with a new idea, figure out how to slot it in, and create a new outline. All the while, I have to keep in mind the earlier elements, while perhaps adding new elements to it. I might add more conflicts- some personal ones in addition to the more plot-centered ones, for instance. I might need to invent new rules for the world to make the plot work. I might need to tweak or add more character traits. And of course, when creating the events, I have to consider the framing. I need to know what happens, whether or not I show it. For instance, what is the Interrogator/Therapist thinking at any given moment? She has a goal- get the information from Jeremy. Is she going about this in a logical way, or did I just put in a line to advance the plot? I don’t want the latter to be the case. Ideally, I want her decisions to be logical from her point of view, and for those logical decisions to advance the plot as well. 

This could get complicated, because it’s often easier to make characters spontaneously stupid for the sake of the plot. For instance, when Jeremy realizes that something is strange about the Therapist, maybe this is because I had her say something that she, as a therapist, shouldn’t know. This is easy, but it isn’t satisfying. The Interrogator/Therapist is supposed to be a professional accustomed to this technology. She shouldn’t make silly mistakes. So I will have a challenge in coming up with a way for Jeremy to plausibly deduce that something is wrong without making the Interrogator seem foolish.

Once I know how the plot is supposed to proceed, it’s time to start actually writing. For me, this is the most difficult part. I much prefer the conceptual realm, where I can move around pieces at will. Once you start making things concrete, it’s easy to get bogged down in a million little problems, such as the one I just described. Often, when being more specific, what seemed like an easy scene becomes a lot more difficult. Just writing, “the Bully provokes Jeremy” is easy. Writing this in a way that avoids making the Bully seem cartoonishly evil, while not making Jeremy seem like he could fly off the handle at any time is tricky. Very tricky. Here, too, as I write, I will have to reevaluate my previous work. Changes might need to be made, and I can’t be afraid to make them. 

And that is ultimately the key: identify and rectify. Find problems and create solutions. Is this scene serving the story? Could it do more? Did I characterize this person correctly? Is this beat necessary? Hopefully, in the end, I come away with a story where every element adds something. Nothing should be able to be thrown away without losing something in the story. And of course, that story has to have some sort of impact on the audience. I can only speculate, of course, if I succeeded in that last part. But I can make educated guesses.

In reviewing my work like that, I sometimes come to an unfortunate conclusion: this story doesn’t work. And with that, we revisit Idea #1. 

Somewhere between plotting and writing, I realized that there wasn’t enough meat for this story. While it started with an aesthetic and a lofty idea, it didn’t have to end there. If compelling story, world, or characters could be added on top of this, it could still work. But the story is lacking- what goes wrong with the base? What are the plot beats between the initial disaster and the sacrifice at the end? How, exactly, does the sacrifice work, and what does it mean to the audience? The world is weak- do we really need a base in the artic just to cool a computer, no matter how large? Is the computer serving a useful function for how much it costs? If it can save itself, why doesn’t it do so on its own? And the character doesn’t make up for those. Why doesn’t he want to open up? Does he have passion in his work, or is this just a job to him? What exactly makes him the one most suitable to make the sacrifice?

Perhaps these problems can be overcome with enough work, but the heart of the story just isn’t beating. What was I trying to say with this computer that can connect people? In the end, I was trying to capture a specific feeling, but the story wasn’t capable of truly bringing that out. And if the elements aren’t serving the purpose of the story, then I don’t have a story. In the end, my goals were too vague to manifest. So, I have to recognize that and let go of the idea if it can’t work.

Idea #2 in this post was written up as a short film script, but I never filmed it. While I like a lot of it, I also felt that it didn’t fully live up to the ideas I wanted to explore. I might punch it up again some day for fun, but I don’t have any plans at the moment. As for Time Gate, that went through a number of iterations of this process. In reality, I had a few more ideas and inspirations that went into it, and a lot more problems to consider. For example, I wanted my protagonists to be something like secret agents, to get into fights with the bad guys, but to be part of a larger “good guy” organization. Needless to say, this is very improbably while they are still in high school. 

But what if they aged were aged up? Let’s say they were eighteen. Still young, still teenagers, but technically adults. If the good guys recruited them now, it would be less ethically dubious. And instead of high school, let’s put them in college. This solves a number of problems. For one, in high school, people tend to know who is in their class. This would mean Kennedy and Blake would be obvious outsiders- curiosities. This isn’t the mood that I wanted, and it also complicates their ability to go incognito- essential if they are spies. But if they are going to college, everyone would be new. And a particular fictional college could explain why we have a hidden princess plot. If its a prestigious university appropriate for our vanishing heir, then no wonder Kennedy and Blake would be sent there to take a look. 

Each of these still prompts more questions, and more answers. Would two recruits really be sent on this important mission? Why precisely, is the princess at this college? Why would she be important enough for the good guys and bad guys to go after? All these questions and more were addressed in the writing of Ascension at Aechyr. But that’s the process in general. Find an inspiration, develop how to express it, and iron out inconsistencies. 

There’s a lot more that can be said about each of these steps, but I have blabbed on for too long already. Perhaps another time I will expand on some of these points, but more likely I will expound on my philosophy in regards to what makes for a functional story. Or I’ll write something totally random. Who knows?