Working Out a Story -- The Material

I. The Material

Besides a small pocket note book which you can always carry with you, you should have one very large book or a series of smaller note books which you can make into an inexhaustible mine of literary material. Divide the large note book up into departments as follows or have a separate book for each department. It is best to use loose leaf note books in which each section can be expanded indefinitely and from which useless leaves can be easily removed.

1.  Magazines. Copy from "Writer's Market." the names of all the publications, using short-stories, that you care to write for, together with the information concerning their nature and needs given there. Supplement this with your own notes of the general character of each magazine and information published in writers magazines and one the Web. Room must be left to note changes in policy, announcements of needs, of prize contests, etc., and also for criticisms made by the various editors in personal notes to you, if they are kind enough to write them.

2.  Themes. The theme is the germ of the plot, and although it is not usually discussed by itself, it may be with profit. Divide this department up into the following varieties of themes: 

(a) love themes, 

(b) business themes, 

(c) political themes,

(d) themes of adventure, 

(e) themes of character de-development - and reformation, 

(f) miscellaneous themes, 

(g) mixed themes.

Or make such other divisions as suggest themselves. When you find yourself in the mood for it, write under each head as many themes as you can think of, such as the following, which would of course come under the heading of "loves themes": A woman loves a man, but will not marry him because she believes that he is—a murderer—a thief—a coward, etc.,—because he really is one of these things. In this way each theme may be worked out with a great many variations. Other sample themes are: A man in need of money has an opportunity to acquire a large amount dishonestly and either does or doesn't, for this or that reason. A man's life is endangered by a wild beast—by a fire—by a blizzard, etc. Themes do not need to be new. A new theme is an extremely rare find. It is the plot that must be new and it is the new combination of. character and treatment and incident that produces the effect of novelty.

3.  Characters. Divide this department up into the following sections: 

(a) characteristic skeletons—In a short-story not more than three or four characteristics of any one character can be developed, usually- not so many. To give roundness other characteristics are implied, but for the purposes of that particular story the character may be supposed to possess only the traits developed strongly in that story. Characteristic skeletons can be made up in infinite variety after the following pattern: A woman, conscientious, passionate, tenderhearted, secretive—a woman, conscientious, passionate, tenderhearted, confiding—conscientious, cruel-natured, and either confiding or secretive, and so on indefinitely. Such skeletons are infinitely suggestive in character construction. Besides inventing them you may describe your friends and the people you meet—even the characters of other authors, in the same way.

(b) Brief descriptions of the physical appearance of characters—Sometimes write complete word pictures of beautiful or otherwise interesting persons either seen or imagined. More often note the people you see or those you invent in a single phrase or sentence such as: a mild-eyed woman; a pert, sparrow-like miss; a tottering, white-haired old man with a cane, etc.

(c)   Notes on queer or unusual characters either from real life or from the imagination.

(d)   Complete character sketches, not to be copied into your stories but to be held in mind in order that your characters may be more real to yourself.

(e)   Individual vocabularies—dialect is out of fashion, but in real life each person has a vocabulary in common use which differs a little bit from that of every other person, and you can make your stories more life-like by recognizing this fact in writing conversations. In order to do this intelligently make notes of the individual, a vocabulary of people you meet or whose conversations you overhear in street cars and other public places.

(f) Names—Your characters should have easily pronounceable names, neither as a rule commonplace nor peculiar. In order that you may not use the same names over or be at a loss when writing it is well to have a list of unobjectionable names at hand, copied from college catalogues or similar places. Some authors have the happy faculty of giving unusually appropriate names to their characters, but the greatest master in this particular, Dickens, is said to have copied his names from the street signs and kept them for future use.

4. Local Color. Under this department write brief descriptions of villages, city streets, or residence districts, word pictures of scenery, weather, etc. Or you may invent all of these things when you are in the mood for it. Make notes, too, of the physical characteristics of foreign countries, of matters of dress, customs, and everything of like nature. If you travel you may make these notes from your own observation, if not you may make them from books of travels and descriptive works. Notes on historical events, costumes, customs, etc., would come under this head also. As adequate descriptions of foreign or historical customs would ordinarily take too much space, a bibliography of books from which local or historical color can be gotten up would be valuable here.

5. Plot Material. 

(a) Notes of interesting complications, misunderstandings, etc., that come to your notice or that are recorded in the papers.

(b)   Descriptions of striking incidents, dramatic, pathetic, or otherwise worth while, either imagined, or copied from life and the newspapers.

(c)   Outlines of complete plots—Often a complete plot including theme and characters comes to mind as easily as a simple theme. Keep outlines of these, and also outlines of plots which you have worked up according to the preceding scheme, but have afterwards rejected for something else.

Please link to the following sections to continue:

*This course is highly recommended for aspiring non-fiction authors! A complete, A-to-Z, step-by-step course on how you can get published, generate publicity, promote your book, build a platform and make a living as an author, expert and speaker.