A Novel Concept - Conceiving a Novel

I have a question for all of you veteran novel-writers. When you first conceive a novel, do you picture the climax, the contretemps that precipitates the climax, or maybe a single character? I mean with the novel I'm presently writing - "Swifter Run the Shadows" - was sparked by a picture I'd seen of a little boy looking out his window at a gallows. All the rest of novel - or I should say the outline since the novel's not done - came from seeing that picture. I took it as the opening scene of my book, and the whole plot is derived from that situation.

I was just wondering whether you all do this same sort of thing, or whether novels spring to mind intact - which I won't believe even if you do say so : - ) So: how do you conceive of a novel?

Well, I'm certainly not a veteran, but I'm going to answer anyway.

I can get ideas from anything. Usually something visual. I could be watching tv - a character will move this way or that, make a specific facial expression, a certain action pose -and from that I have a scene. The climax is usually the first scene to develop. The opening is the last.

I don't think I qualify as a veteran either with one finished, one partly finished and some novel bits (and no sales yet), but hey, I've got an opinion and I'm not afraid to share it. :b

My novel ideas have started out with what if? questions.

What if someone made some military technology and then forgot about it and it went off on its own, becoming something like sentient? What if the most advanced culture around that might help contain the runaway tech was zenophobic and uninterested in helping out the neighbors? What if some people didn't feel that way and went to help after all?

And so on, until eventually I have a plot. Or something.

Where are those pros? I'm unpublished too. I write mostly short stories, but one of them got interesting and I decided there was enough there to make it a novel.

My ideas come from pictures sometimes, what if questions many times and sometimes a phrase or a title comes first.

The climax has never come to me right away. I need to dwell on the idea and work with it with more "what if" questions. I have been three quarters of the way through a short story a couple of times before the climax jumped out and surprised me.

Watcher

Usually I see the climax. But not always.

Er, um ...

Normally I see the place, then populate it with characters and actions. I do everything the hard way.

Re: Er, um ...

I usually start with the character, then give her a quest and create a place for her to achieve her quest...

What I'm gathering here is that we're all different.

As Uncle Jim says, "Whatever works."

Ruth

Re: Er, um ...

Usually I see the climax. Usually my beginnings are wrong (more back stories than real beginnings) but my climax and some of the big "set pieces" stay intact...

LOL

Are we talking sex or writing?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Usually I see the climax. But not always. <hr></blockquote>


<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Usually I see the climax. Usually my beginnings are wrong (more back stories than real beginnings) but my climax and some of the big "set pieces" stay intact...<hr></blockquote>

Conception, oh yeah.

For me, knowing the peaks and valleys of my story evolves as the characters reveal them to me. Typically I know the ending and who dies along the way, before I've nailed the opening scene. I don't write the scenes in order, and don't know their final sequence until a few revisions are in the pot.

I'm weird

I see only an opening scene--for one novel I had gone back to a place I spent a lot of time at in my teen years a park bench at a lake. As I stood there looking at that bench I "saw" one of the characters and then the story took off--no I didn't know what the end would be, what the middle would be or any of it.

Another story happened when I was at a Christmas Market in Germany, picked up a really nice sword and the story was born. Same way, no middle, no end--just a brief flash of a woman using that sword with an incredible tattoo on her back.

For me, as crazy as it sounds, stories happen as if the characters are telling a bit of their life through me--I have no idea what they are going to tell me next and if I try to interject my own ideas into it then the story hits a brick wall.

I don't recommend this method for most. Things work out -- foreshadowing is there. The little bits that you need to make a smooth story are there. Most times magic happens and the story flows from the keyboard--but other times--ugh. g

Shawn

Ha Ha

Ruth

"Who stole my Bum Glue?"

Does that mean you're not "anally retentive" until you get it back?

They should ban bum glue!

:teeth

Re: Ha Ha

well, i'm not a veteran writer, but i start with images.

in my short stories, not of which were very succesful (though i haven't looked at them in years), i started with a concept and an image.

one of my short stories evolved form a picture of a kid in street clothes, holding a glowing gem up against- something.

that became the story of a young thief who's steal a magic gem from this wizard guy, and gets chased out of town by the Big Evil Things that want it. luckily, he has the talent for magic and eventually learns to use it against them.

my book, Flawed Creation comes from many thing at once.

i was in love with Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar", and i loved the tone of it. i got this idea years ago, when i use to run around playing pretend all the time. i had several that involved that musical.

the climax of my book is partly derived form that. also, my main character. i loved both Judas and Christ in JCs, so i resolved to combine them into one character. how could betrayer and betrayed be the same person?

around this tiem i was still playing the card game "magic"

the flavor text on the cards hinted at some stories, but never fully explained them. there had been, for a long time, a goddes of good clled "serra". then she had a rival named "Radiant". Radiant was this angel who was mroe warlike than Serra and wanted to build an army of angels to take over the world- to save people from hte bad guys, of course.

it was obvious that Radiant was the mistaken one, but then i started to think "what if i changed the story so that Radiant was right"

i was a LotR fan, and i kind of thought that a ring-like object might push "radiant" over the edge and start things off. the question was whtehter the ring was actually evil, or whether it was making the right thing happen.

finally, the 3rd edition of dungeons and dragons had just come out. i was having fun designing new magic weapons, and characters. i hit upon the idea for a keen, flaming burst, shocking burst, icy burst sword.

this is the sword that you see in my sample in "share your work"

i need a name for "Radiant". i wanted something that sounded good, but harsh. i was stuck for a long time, until my father suggested "lucifer". since it does mean "Lightbringer" i thougt it fit. it also brought me back to biblical themes again, being now a story about the fall of lucifer, told form his perspective.

it all sort of came together pretty recently and i wrote a truly bad first chapter 6 months ago. about 1 month ago, i started writing for real, and here i am now.

so, to answer your question, i got the climax, beginning, and premise all sort at once. i ahd separate ideas that suddenly jelled together.

Re: conceiving a novel

I'm more like Terra in that most of the time I get a notion and try to see if there's enough for a story. The novel I'm working on now started with:

what if a middle aged man who had been rather weak throughout his life was presented with an opportunity to prove to his father that he really was a strong individual?

On the other hand, I once dreamed a short story in its entirety and frantically scribbled an outline the moment I woke up.

Re: conceiving a novel

My prior attempts were based on broad "What if?" premises, as Terra and Chunky describe. This time I'm going with more of a morality play. So it changes to a question of how to depict a moral delimma. And the climax is the embodiment of that dilemma playing out for the reader, so that follows in short order. Then it's a matter of figuring out how the characters got into that terrible (albeit illustrative) mess.

JB

Re: conceiving a novel

I start off with broad "what ifs", but IMO you can't stop there. The more questions you ask, the more answers you have, which for me makes my story deeper.

Re: conceiving a novel

Exactly right, Terra. The 'what if...' is merely the starting point.

Re: conceiving a novel

I usually don't start with "what if." I start with something that actually happened.

Re: conceiving a novel

They should ban bum glue!

Click to expand...

I was away for most of a day and look what happens...:shrug

I changed my sig again because some people don't seem to understand what I'm talking about, but "Bum Glue" is a metaphor that one particularly adept writer coined for BIC.

Anyhow, I seem to be missing mine... (Meaning I'm not spending nearly as much time writing as I should. >: )

And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

Ruth

Re: conceiving a novel

I get a vague idea, then from that vague idea a character emerges, then with that character I write a scene, that scene leads to the next, then the next, then the next. Sometimes it stagnates and I have to go back. Sometimes it keeps going until it ends.

So basically, writing to me is like this giant maze, and I'm a mouse searching for the cheese.

Re:Conceiving a novel

This is a bit hard to answer for me but I'll try... I have a few different modalities... For one, I play around with 3d art programs and often will start building a world and a story line becomes a part of the world shaping it into what it will become as a final product. Other times, I'm daydreaming or actually asleep dreaming and stories will come to me. Still other times, stories come from watching people from a distance, their expressions, body language, etc and attributing my own thoughts about what the dialogue or actions are about.

Re: Re:Conceiving a novel

I start with a what-if question, and build a plot and characters to answer it (as well as all the other what-if questions that spring from the first one).

I have one image that wants to turn into a novel, but I haven't figured out yet what the story is.

- Victoria

Re: Re:Conceiving a novel

I have a rough idea of what's going to happen, but all the wee fiddly bits come along as I'm writing -when the characters take off and start doing things of their own accord.

Cheers,
aq

Re: Re:Conceiving a novel

I am not at a publishable stage yet but I have written three practice novels so far. Usually I think of a situation that inetersts me, and I have one character who is very clear to me. I try to think of some key scenes for my rough story idea and I write one---generally one with lots of dialogue. I find that key lines jump out at me which summarize the characters and help me think further about them. For example, in my current story, I just wrote a scene where three of the characters are talkign about why they teamed up and what each person brings to the group. And one of them talks about himself and the other guy, then the heroine asks that he feels she brings to the group. He says "Desperation." And later in the same scene, she is sharing her fears about her sister with him, and he completely disarms her rant about what she fears her sister will do with a simple "Like you did?" Somehow having the two of them play off each other helped me bring these facets of her personality out. I can really see her as a well-rounded person now. And when I have a scene that has lines that jump out at me like that, those are usually the ones where my writing group friends come back and say "I really liked that part."