My 10 Easy Steps to Developing a Story

A few people have asked me recently how I develop my stories, so I thought I'd share a few quick tips.

1) Get a randomly brilliant idea while taking my morning shower. You know, because I’m not already working on at least five other “brilliant” ideas, and adding another in just for kicks and giggles will be awesome.

2) Frantically scribble my ideas from the shower into the first notebook I can pick up from my desk while brushing my teeth and trying not to run late for work.

3) Get to work and forget everything about the idea I didn’t write down.

4) Get home and try to work on the idea. No luck.

5) Go to bed … then come up with even more great material for the idea at 1:00am right before I fall asleep. Write all this down as sloppily as possible in a different notebook I always keep beside my bed for this very reason.

6) Try to write on my lunch break the next day. Spend the entire time on tumblr instead.

7) A few days go by. After a few more post-shower and late-night scribble sessions, I finally sit down and study my notes and try to write some kind of synopsis.

8) Try to type up notes. Give up after 1.5 paragraphs. Take them to work and scan them into a PDF instead. Cause, you know, that’s totally better than just reading them from a notebook.

9) Obsessively collect images from tumblr and deviantART that related to this new story idea.

10) Actually start writing the story. JUST KIDDING! I have to decide between making stir-fry or eating Ramen for dinner. Ramen it is ... and how about some Netflix while I'm at it.



In all seriousness, though, this is exactly how I "develop" my story ideas. It's not pretty, but somehow I make it work, and sometimes I even write the actual story. I've never developed a story the same way twice, and I'm always trying different techniques. I can't really say one works better than the rest. You've just got to put in the time.

In the end, a story is a collection of ideas and thoughts, and I almost always have to let them simmer in my head a while before they tell me exactly what they're meant to become.