..:: Written .:. Off ::..

I had an idea for yet another novel yesterday. It’s an old idea that I finally let boil long enough to be excited about. I have a vast repository of half ideas in my head. Every once in a while, I can join them together into something usable. The bad part is that I don’t have an actual story. This happens to be a lot. I have a situation but no story. What’s the difference? A situation would be something like this:

A man from earth is transported into another world where he ends up being the smartest being on the planet.

An okay place to start, but it’s not a story, just a situation. I come up with a lot of these situations. Unfortunately, you can’t get away with just a situation. There has to be some substance. In the example above, you could probably write several chapters leading up to the main characters arrival in the strange new world, but then what happens? That’s where the story should fit in. A situation can’t really sustain a whole novel.

When I come up with ideas, I tend to come up with characters first and story later.  I rarely ever have the story first, then have to go back and make up the characters.

So now, I have this great idea (not the example listed above, I stole that from a movie) but no story. The challenge now is to come up with a story that does justice to the situation.

How do you tend to write? Do you have a story first and characters later? Or do you start with characters or a situation?

If I’m making sense, it’s very early and I can still taste the toothpaste.