/lit/ - Literature

Come up with shitty stories by thinking way too much about plot, write a little about shit you actually have experience with, spend way too much thinking about plot and working on those some more, work a little on the thing you actually understand without a plot and start thinking about where to take it. Realize you're starting to make something good and naturally quit it.

>>15024121
How does one expand themselves beyond settings/occupations/characters they've had personal experience with? The "you must have lived it" requirement risks reducing literature to a simple communication of experiences with a coat of interchangeable dramatic paint. Couldn't someone just make up the details of a person working on the railroad after a bit of research? Some creativity and embellishment won't dishonour the great railworker clan.

I wait until I have an interesting dream, then I adapt it.

>>15024108

>>15024786
this partially. A lot of it comes from reading and heavy alone time simply thinking

I do not think them, I steal them

I prefer to improvise and learn about the plot as it is gradually conjured up. I've tried planning it out but find that to be inorganic and restrictive. I start with a seed idea and a general idea of where it might end up and then the story teaches me where it wants to go.

>>15024108
Have your protagonist desire something.
Then create creat an obstacle (physical or abstract; or both) that blocks him from getting what he wants.
Finally, write how he creatively overcome this obstacle, after much suffering.

>>15025212
Fucking boring. Try making something avant garde innovative

>>15025217
You have to know the rules before you can break them.
At least that template is for "meaningful" stories. If you try to do something totally original for the sake of it, you'll only allienate or emotionally unsatisfy your reader.

>>15025232
True. But those rules are not known by practising them, they're simply known, obvious

>>15025237
LOL. That aren't even the real rules. If I had to write them all, I couldn't, because even I don't know all the rules. And even if we knew them, it doesn't mean that we would execute it properly. If OP wants to get better at plotting and such, he has to practice within these rules.

>>15025258
True. But is not what was being talked about

"If there's a book you want to read, but it doesn't exist, then you must write it."
There're lots of such books I want to read, so I write them.

>>15025266
He's right though. Every great avant-garde painter was highly capable in traditional and realist styles. Free-form poetry is impossible to write well if one is ignorant of what poetry is to begin with.

Rip from monomyth when I've made a cool idea that doesn't have a full narrative, get drunk and run the inevitable word salad from the typewriter through the shredder the next morning, reconstitute into something coherent. It seems to work, or at least eliminate a bunch of bad ideas.

>>15025299
Maybe.

>>15024108
>1. What idea am I trying to convey through the story?
>2. What changes should the characters go through to properly do that?
>3. What kind of conflict would best achieve that?

The Stranger
>1.
The alienation of an amoral man.
>2.
He should learn that society punishes those who dare to go against the stablished moral standard.
>3.
He will express his amorality through an action that ends up condemning him to jail.

Madame Bovary
>1.
The frugality of love.
>2.
They should learn that the search for an idealized kind of love is the ruin of a person.
>3.
A girl is unhappy with her marriage and seeks outside affairs.

I've simplified the stories above, of course, but this structure works for me. If there are a lot of characters in your story and each of them should portray a different idea, try answering the questions for all of them.

>>15024732
Go read Ion again. Writing about what you don’t know takes some research and a specific way of framing things to make the reader who knows even less about a subject think you know what’s going on. Eg. legal dramas are exciting to everyone who isn’t a lawyer.

Most of my plots come from shit I read plus my dreams. I was reading Invisible Cities and I came out with like 6 different plots that I could work into full length novels.

1. Open up a book of fables or a history book or something
2. Pick out a story I like
3. Edit it as I please
4. Write like a god

>>15024108
I don't. I come up with an idea and a theme and writing revolves around those.

It just happens, I come up with a bit of it that I like and when I sit down to write I fit the other pieces in the puzzle or abandon it.
For erotic stories, I do not use porn and allow my mind to come up with exciting situations that I write down after finishing.

>>15024108
im usually like "huh thats pretty cool lol", and then i try and push it further, and then further, and then.....

>>15025480
Seems to me like this format doesn't work as soon as the story gets more thematically complex
For example, how do you fit a problem play like measure for measure into this format

1. idea, scrap of dialogue, bored worldbuilding, whatever
2. identify what kind of story lets me realise the idea
3. develop character with a goal, a flaw, and a lesson to learn that lets me tell that kind of story
4. main plot grows naturally out of the main character's goal and flaws
5. identify potential themes, pick an interesting one
6. create subplots that build on the theme

For example:
Idea: Gay erotic fiction involving handsome virile supersoldiers escape an eeevil dictatorship
Type of story: spy thriller
Character: Unassuming diplomat sent from America to the embassy in eeevil dictatorship who gets caught up in these supersoldiers trying to defect to America, falls in love and ends up way over his head in spy shit. Goal: get his lover out alive. Flaw: doesn't believe in himself, doesn't back himself, lets himself be manipulated by his American handlers who are only interested in the mission (getting the sekrit documents the defecting supersoldiers are smuggling out to "buy" their defection) and not the life of his lover. Lesson: America and the free world aren't as perfect or worthy of his sacrifice as he thought they were - puts love over country
Themes: Patriotism, duty to country, sacrificing for the greater good
Subplots: Supersoldier lover is almost "found out" by an intelligence officer from the eeevil dictatorship who is actually a good man but has a duty to turn the supersoldier in, so the supersoldier has to kill him? A "save the world" subplot to do with the contents of the sekrit documents? Domestic American political shit that the diplomat is involved in involving lies and coverups?

Then all you have to do it outline it and execute it. It's fucking braindead easy.

>"but your idea is shit"
All ideas are shit. All that matters is execution. The point is that this is enough to start executing on, not that this is good.

>>15025592
I think then it has more to do with how you arrange the narrative than the coming up with the plot itself.

>>15025656
Duh, I forgot the main plot because I'm a fucking retard.

Diplomat is recruited by spy at short notice to make contact with the supersoldier and smuggle the documents because it's the only way in to the eeevil dictatorship.

Diplomat falls in love with the supersoldier

Something happens (caused by subplot?) that puts the supersoldier at risk. CIA/spies want to cut him loose.

Diplomat refuses, goes big damn hero to save him himself.

Happy ending.

>>15025592
>measure for measure
I don't know what this is, sorry. And about the structure, it may not be the ideal for complex novels, but for now I just write short stories and it fits well. And as >>15025659 said, this is the first step in order to come up with the plot.

>>15025801
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_for_Measure

I disagree. For fiction plot comes from character and circumstance or environment, not the other way around. Starting with a plot creates wooded stories, just like a song written for the hook:

First you have to ask yourself: to what extent are your characters shaped by their circumstance and to what extent are the circumstances shaped by your characters.

Second. To preserve continuity, you can't make characters that are not internally consistent, and you can't make circumstances that are not externally consistent.

Third. To preserve verisimilitude, you can't make characters who do things unbelievable to the limits of your experience with people like that, and you can't make circumstances unbelievable to your experience to what has happened with stories in your past.
Keep these three in your view in an ongoing revision, but not to the extent that you censure yourself.

The trick is to approach from both the character and the circumstances simultaneously and let the characters and the circumstances write your plot for you. Then once you have the plot revise to make it make sense. If you start with a known plot, your book will come out wooden and technical. Remember, the plot is irrelevant to the reader’s change of paradigm which comes from how your characters respond to the world they make.

Here’s and exercise: For third person narrator put two people in a room having a conversation. For first person narrator put your protagonist in a space dealing with a conflict. Then let the characters and the place dictate what happens. Let it be a surprise, and don't forget to revise.

In the end, character, circumstance, or plot is irrelevant to the art, which you cannot storyboard - you must let art come out organically.

>>15024108
I just think how the girl I love would kill herself. That's what I write.

>>15024108
Well i, i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i

>>15024108
steal someone else's and then change it up a bit

>>15024108
>you, you personally
poor style OP, just write 'how do you come up with a plot?'