HOW TO STRUCTURE AND DEVELOP A STORY
We’re constantly bombarded with ideas for all kinds of stories, and sometimes we just can’t get them down on paper and start developing them.
That happened to me, right at the beginning. Especially because I started developing stories as a gardener writer.
For those who don’t know what a gardener writer (or discovery writer) is: it’s someone who has a basic idea for a story and starts writing it as the ideas come.
Because of this creative process, I was constantly hit by creative block, or I’d simply get lost while developing the story.
So I started organizing and planning the story from a basic idea, and only then developing it.
I started mapping the characters’ emotional and physical traits, creating their family trees, mapping their interactions, planning the settings where they would interact and much more that I could detail when planning the story.
Since I started organizing everything, I haven't been hit by creative block again.
In the diagram below you can see this planning in more detail.
With this information-gathering stage organized, I move on to writing a short summary of the story using this information.
A short piece of writing with a beginning, middle and end.
Once I’ve written this summary, I take the beginning and break it down into possible chapters. I write other short summaries that will make up the rest of the chapters.
I do the same with the middle and the end.
This way, I decide where the plot twists, climax and so on will happen.
With all this planned, I start developing the story: the scenes, dialogue and interactions. I write the whole narrative.
Sometimes the planned outline evolves midway as new ideas come up, and I have to readjust things, but since everything was already planned, this reorganization of ideas is much easier.
About the Author
Leandro Vieira da Silva (Rio de Janeiro, June 11, 1986), also known as LeandroVSilva, is a Brazilian writer, author of the Enerkry series among others. In 2018 he released his first book, Os Irmãos do Gelo, the first book in the Enerkry series.
Founder of LeandroVSilva STUDIO, in 2022 he left his stable job of many years to found his own company, dedicate himself to his career and help other authors in their literary and business journeys.
HOW TO PUBLISH YOUR BOOKS ABROAD AS AN INDIE AUTHOR
CAN YOU MAKE A LIVING FROM BOOKS?
