How to write fiction?
29-04-19
There are three types of writers.
1) Writing fiction without an idea, story concept or outline.
2) Writing fiction with a story concept or outline.
3) Writers without writing fiction!
They are the laziest writers. They don’t write anything at all but they all think they are writers. Just like you and me. Everyone carries some story idea in their mind but is too lazy to write it down. “We” writers are waiting for software engineers to develop an OS system which can help download stories from our brain. BOT will help us to develop characters, subplots, proofreading, editing and polishing. Writing is a lonely process. Worst part of writing is the editing. Not every writer is satisfied with his work. He feels happy and satisfied when his readers say your story is good.
I wrote this article on 29-04-2019 . To day We have ChatGPT . If you feed story idea or synopsis it write enitre fiction or novel ! At last my dream came true!
How to write fiction?
It’s a simple question but not easy to explain.
1) Writing fiction without an idea, story concept or outline.
There are writers; they start writing stories without a story concept till the end! In my opinion if you start writing fiction without a story concept you are likely to hit “writer’s block”. Few bangs on the wall with your head can get rid of writer’s block but your head ache will remain.
Writer’s block. While writing stories you will get stuck somewhere, without removing blockage you cannot precede writing. Without story concept they only know how to overcome writer’s block.
2) Writing fiction with a story concept or outline.
Most of us write fiction with a story concept or outline. The advantage is that even if you hit writer’s block you can complete other chapters and come back to the point where you got stuck. To remove blockage you have to modify it at that point. If you make any modification you have to make sure that you have not goofed up your story. Read the story again and make necessary corrections or modifications wherever it is required. Don’t worry, the first draft is real shit. It takes three to five drafts to make it as a final draft. In between time you keep adding subplots and necessary dialog.
Story concept. Story concept can be a single word like love, romance, family value, friendship, murder, revenge, ghost, spy espionage, alien or any other thing in between. You can also use one-liners or loglines as story concepts.
I.e. Eternal love. Logline “ A young lover was brought back to life using futuristic technology after 25 years on A.D 2030 , he falls in love with same woman”
Broken Heart horror thriller “
Logline: ‘I will hunt down and kill every one of you…I swear!’
You can write fiction based on story concepts or loglines. Write a short synopsis or outline of the story first.
Here is the example of my short synopsis.
Eternal Love .short synopsis
Billionaire's only son Ajay dies in a freak accident but his girlfriend Maya survives. Twenty-five years later Ajay was brought back to life with futuristic technology in A.D.2030. Fate brings them together. His ex-girlfriend Maya is a happily married woman with a grown-up son. Will they become lovers again? What happened to their only love child Sandhya?
Have you ever read wholesome entertainers? My fiction is full of life. It has family value, love, romances, sex, songs, fight scenes, plane crash landing, Robo surgeon and his assistant S-2-P and her antics. Reading my fiction is like watching a movie. Today it is my vision; in the near future my fiction will become a reality. Trust ME!
BROKEN HEART. Horror thriller short synopsis.
A young married couple from New Delhi decides to spend their honeymoon at hill resort Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu. Near the suicide point at about 8.30 P.M. in the pouring rain her husband was brutally beaten to death and his young wife gets gang raped and murdered. They burnt the body of husband and wife so that there is no evidence. Only the husband alone comes back to life! Out of ten million people in Chennai city he will have to hunt down and kill each one of the perpetrators of crime in a gruesome manner. What makes this fiction unique? The special appearance, character and special power given to Ajay make this fiction interesting.
Synopsis of Eternal love . (Main story without subplots)
Billionaire's only son Ajay was asked to get married after he completed his MBA to look after their family business. Dax airways is one of India's largest private airways .One day he attended one of his ex- colleague's marriage functions at Chennai. There he fell in love with a beautiful girl from a middle class family. After a short courtship and one night stand at the beach resort they decide to get married. On the way back to the city their car met with an accident. Ajay had serious head injuries and died at the hospital but his girlfriend Maya survives …..
Ajay's father sends his body to the U.S to preserve it for an indefinite period of time. Hoping that some other day his only son will come back to life...
When Maya's parents came to know about her pregnancy they forced her for abortion; so that they want their only daughter to gets married and settle down in her life. Maya wants their only love child at any cost. One day she left her house and boarded a bus to temple town. There she found refuge in an orphanage. After seven months Maya delivered a baby girl .She named her Sandhya .Maya's parents visited her at the orphanage and asked her to return home. She had one precondition that she is allowed to visit her baby as and when she wants. With a heavy heart she handed over her baby girl to Sister Mary thinking that sister Mary will take care of her love child.
At home her parents ask her to continue her studies. After completing her studies as software engineer she was able to get a job in MNC at Bangalore .Because of her hectic work schedule she was able to visit her daughter only on alternative months. Once when she went to visit her daughter she found that her daughter was missing from the orphanage... She had a mental breakdown. She had to undergo treatment for six months to recover. When she became normal her father got her married to a senior executive at Delhi through marriage. Maya had no other option but to get married and settled down in life. Life moves on….
A.D.2030...Twenty five years later Ajay was brought back to life with the help of science and technology. Ajay's aged parents brought him back home from the U.S.
He was still in love with Maya! As far as Ajay is concerned it was only six months ago he met with an accident... he was frozen in time. He is still twenty four years old... he wants to search for his lady love and start his life all over again.
.
Ajay's aged parents ask him to forget about his long lost lady love and settle down with married life. He had one last request to his aged parents that he is allowed to walk down the memory lane for the one last time….
Ajay went to Chennai in search of Maya but returned back to the airport with a broken heart. .Fate brings Ajay and Maya back together after their plane crash landed. Even though Ajay saved Maya’s husband he died at the hospital. At the hospital only Ajay had found that it was his Maya and her son. Ajay met Maya's son Sooraj of his age. Ajay helped Maya to take her husband's body to her home .After the funeral Ajay had packed up all his things and was about to say goodbye... Maya told Ájay about their only love child Sandhya. . Maya's son Sooraj came to know about his half sister and he want to meet her. Ajay and Maya go in search of their only love child.
At last they found their love child with adopted parents. Ajay and Maya arrange marriage for sooraj and Sandhya .Ajay alone goes to his house and ask his aged parents to bless two newly married young couples. Ajay and Maya make use of the opportunity by falling for Ajay's parents and getting blessings from them! After getting blessing from Ajay's parents they catch their first flight to Switzerland to enjoy their Honeymoon after twenty five years! They celebrate new life with marathon love making session....
In this synopsis I have not disclosed how Ajay was brought back to life scientifically. Also other sub plots and much more...
Rest of the story is all about character development, events, subplots and more subplots.
Now you have a main story without character development, events and subplots, in your leisure time you can easily develop characters and subplots. Even if you get stuck with writer’s block you can always write other chapters and complete fiction. Come back to the point where you had writer’s block or problem take time to rectify the problems and make sure that the rest of the story merge well with the situation.
I decided to write a ghost story. From story concept to full manuscript. This is how I had executed it. I said the concept of the story can be a single word or logline but for a broken heart horror thriller I had used an image which I had seen when I was just a six or seven years old boy. Yes, you can use images as story concepts.
We all know ghosts will take revenge. To take revenge you have to find a valued reason. I had used revenge for hero’s wife getting raped. Four of the guys will beat hero to death and gang rape his wife. To avoid living proof they also kill his wife and escape to Chennai city. Out of ten million people in Chennai hero will have to hunt down and kill four of the rapist cum murders.
Usually ghosts can appear and disappear without any trace but my ghost is real! He is very much alive. People cannot see him but they can see his presence as a shadow image under the lighting conditions. Real images of the hero can be seen on reflective surfaces like glass panels, mirrors and water. He will come ‘alive’ only when fight with four of his enemies. He gets hurt when he fights with the enemy. He can also get killed when he is very much alive .He changes his appearance four times.
I had to think hard but not fast. When he comes to Chennai to hunt down rapists what sort of obstacle will he have to face? The special character I had given him created problems but also he helped him get through obstacles! Hard to believe it? Read the fiction to find out.
You readers think that we writers use creativity / imagination to write fictions. The answer is yes and no!
The answer is NO! Not the entire story is made out of our creativity or imagination. My semi autobiography is only seventy percent real and thirty percent reel calls it fake or imagination. You will not be able to find out which part is real and where I had used imagination. That’s how you write fiction. Mix facts with fiction. Readers will believe you.
For ‘The New Prime minister’ political thriller I had mixed real life events and history to write fiction. Just changed the name, time and place to fictionalise. You can use history and mythology to write fictions just by changing time, place and names.
I said not the entire story is made up by the writer. He takes ‘liberty’ while writing fiction. Incident we remember reading in the newspaper, T.V news, someone narrated some incident to you, your neighbour aunty told you an old joke like “Look…. Your children and my children are playing with ‘our’ children!” If anything you can add on to your story just add it but it should perfectly jell with the situation. The added piece should not appear like patch work.
The answer is also ‘YES’! If you have to write a fantasy novel set on a distant planet you have to rely on your creativity and visualisation. Creativity for developing characters and story. Visualisation is for setting up unknown planets like geography, topography and other living creatures and animals. Appearance ,character, texture of skin , lighting condition on planet, climate , space age technology , spaceship ,mode of transport etc.
Visualisation.
I said story writers use visualisation to write fiction. Here is the sample of work from my science fiction “War on Terror”.
WAR ON TERROR Sci-fiction.
Log line. Terminator is our saviour
This fiction is the imagination of my work. Religion or clash of civilization has nothing to do with my work. The Names and places mentioned in this fiction are only to create a surrealistic effect.
Author-Jivan.
Short synopsis.
U.S government redesigns and deploys star war project to hunt down international terrorist organization across the world. Action takes place in space, New York, London, Munich, Iraq, Manila and a terrorist camp in Remote Island off the cost of Philippines. Read diabolic plans of Jihadists.
Starring. George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden and others.
Written by Jivan!
Don’t trust me! Here is a scene for you to visualize, it is from my sci-fiction ‘War on Terror’ for Hollywood production. Chain of events takes places on outer space. There is a standoff scene between Killer satellite (Terminator) and an Alien spaceship. In a decisive moment the Terminator shoots down the spaceship. Falling massive space junk cuts the tail end of the Boeing plane over Munich air space. Plane goes out of control and crashed onto city's skyscraper; there i create 9/11 situation. The massive space junk lands on a German national highway bridge and cuts it into two parts. Vehicles pile up on either side of the space junk, some of the vehicles over shoots and land on other side and resume their journey! In between scenes there are enough subplots and necessary dialog in it. This is the kind of scenes I wants to work as visualizer.
You only visualise each sentence. You will not be able to visualise what I have not written here. Try to read between each sentence. Between each sentence there are subplots and necessary dialog.
Here is another example I had used visualisation to write an article on a blog. Sitting in one corner of the world my mind went all the way to Manhattan.
It was 5 am. On Sunday. Lying on my bed I was thinking how to beat the blues. Then I remembered my dad’s presentation for me. A brand new sexy helicopter he had presented me after I secured top rank in MBA. It was still lying on our terrace. I am yet to test drive her.
I got out of my bed and put on casual clothes. Took chopper key and my Iphone. I got into the chopper and headed towards Manhattan. Flying over the Hudson River I put the chopper on auto pilot mode and took video on my Iphone. In the early morning sunlight upper Manhattan looks awesome. I enjoyed shooting for some time. I thought flying my new baby between the skyscraper buildings would be much more fun.
I took a left turn and entered the Manhattan area and dipped the chopper….
Kathy the teenage chick prepared her morning coffee and came to the balcony on 52 nd floor of her apartment. Looking at the sunrise and enjoying her morning coffee.
Flying though Manhattan I took a left turn and a right turn without a second thought. Man that was really cool. Only after I took the right turn did I realise I was heading towards a dead end!
Suddenly Kathy noticed the chopper was heading straight towards her. She was frozen with fear. Few words flashed in her mind. Suicide mission….Al quade….9/11…
“Come on baby….PULL UP…PULL UP… I took a vertical U turn. Chopper started flying upside down and started flying in the opposite direction. Gradually I changed its orientation and managed to fly back home.
Mr. Watson started his day with an early morning walk. As he stepped out of his ground floor he heard a breaking sound behind him. He turned back and found a broken coffee mug in pieces. He then looked up and found a teenage girl with her face covered in her mini skirt and her hair standing like hay stack. Jesus! The old man had never seen anything like this before in his lifetime. His jaw dropped open.
I safely landed the chopper on my home terrace and got into my room. Changed my clothes and fell on my bed.
“Ajay, are you still sleeping”? My mum brought me morning coffee.
I pretended as if I was coming out of sleep. “No, mum I was just dreaming”.
“It's already 9 ‘o’ clock, your papa is waiting for to join breakfast”
I took the coffee from mum “thank you mum, I will be back soon”.
Mum left the room...
Short fictions are made of a series of lies. Everyone likes sugar coated lies. It is not necessary that we story writers are liars in real life. Most of us are honest people trying to make out a life by writing fiction.
Sad part is that not every writer will make a living by writing fiction. If any one of his fiction became best sellers then there is a possibility that his other fictions will get published or pick up sales.
Happy writing,
Best of luck,
Friend,
Jivan
