Brainstorming Shift

 I usually write my posts on Thursday evenings after the day job. Yesterday, however, the evening was spent getting the first round of Covid shots for the DH and for me. 

No problem, I told myself. I'll write it in the morning. 

We can all plainly see that did not happen. I have symptoms - relatively mild, but symptoms nevertheless. As a morning, it's also been a cluster that resulted in the horrible death of a member of my yard community (a black racer snake who likes to hunt around the foundation of the house). Buried him/her in the garden in a sunny spot. Going to miss seeing 'my' snake.

Brainstorming is generally a solo activity unless I have access to another writer who is as character-driven as I am. I like brainstorming for others. I like having others brainstorm for or with me. But it's not generally something I seek out unless I get stuck. Since brainstorming is about shifting how you think about a story, I find it useful when I'm staring at the same sentence for days on end. I don't always or even often take the suggestions giving in brainstorming sessions, but picking up ideas isn't the point. For me, the point is leveraging other people's ideas to pry my thinking out of the rut it fell into. That, for me, is the job of brainstorming with other people.

The rest of the brainstorming happens solo. Need to be able to hear those little internal voices and give them some space.

Braaaains! Erm, Brainstorming

What is my brainstorming process? Do I solicit opinions? Do I drag trusted coconspirators through the twists and webs of my weird? 

Mostly, no. 

I will bounce the idea of which project(s) to pursue off a friend or two, but when it comes to the stories themselves, that's not a group-think thing. It's not because I think I'm some sort of fantasy genius; it's more that my author-voice is rooted in how I conceive and farm the story. I need to be able to roll around and bury myself in my imaginary dirt without permission or supervision, or feeling like I'm intruding on someone else's turf. Even though I'm a skeletal plotter, I return often to the landfill of my imagination for the details of the story. 

For me, story ideas usually start with a protagonist, two or three supporting characters, a couple of climactic moments, and an emotional challenge. From there it's figuring out magic systems, the presence of creatures, and the environment. Then comes the tricky bit, the plot. 

Now, I do love to participate in brainstorming other people's ideas or just brainstorming with friends for shits and giggles. Makes me a fine hypocrite, I suppose, but what's not to love about a lengthy game of What If? It's a great way to learn more about my friends. And, who knows, I might even track a little dirt home.  

The Magic of Group Brainstorming

Hello all and happy spring!

At the SFF Seven this week we're asking: What’s your brainstorming process? Do you come up with ideas by yourself or do brainstorm with someone else?

Me? I don't preplot because I can't. My ideas all come to me pretty much in the course of writing. Some of them come from daydreaming about the story, but the real flow comes as I write. A lot of the time, that's the ONLY way the story flows. 

The salient exception to this is that I love brainstorming with author friends. There are few things more fun for me than brainstorming a world or exits from sticky plot solutions with other creative brains. And I have just as much fun working on their stories! It's a real truth that, for whatever reason, an outside mind can almost always see the story more clearly than we can our own. I can tell other writers how to "fix" their stories and have zero ability to find solutions to my own. And vice-versa. 

Especially when trad publishing wants me to tell them something about the plot before I actually write the book, I turn to my friends. I can usually say who the characters are and I can describe the situation they're in - and then my brilliant author comrades take it from there. It inevitably changes when I write the words, but they are true lifesavers in giving that much-needed perspective.

Brainstorming for the win!

Who to Trust With Your Work - The Junior High Dance Edition

How do you know who to trust with your writing, especially early drafts and idea bouncing.

Yikes. This is such a process of trial and error. It's like those middle school and junior high dances where everyone's awkwardly hugging the edges of the room afraid to ask anyone to dance for fear of rejection or ridicule. Figuring out who you can trust with your well being as well as your heart is part of growing up as a human being. Figuring out who to trust with your writing is part of growing as a writer. And yes. The process is about as painful.

There's so much to learn.What's acceptable behavior. What isn't. What builds you up. What tears you down. That last is really hard because what's soul-killing to one writer will be nourishing for another. I will say this, though. When you find someone you can trust to give you the unvarnished truth about your work in a kind, constructive way, that person will be worth their weight in gold. It took me three dysfunctional groups before I fell by accident into one that taught me not only how to critique, it taught me how to take critique. The authors who welcomed me into that group had hundreds (not kidding) of books pubbed between them. I had zero, and I was still several years away from selling anything. These ladies ripped my manuscript to shreds. It would have been demoralizing except for the fact that they also painstakingly explained what was wrong and how I could fix it. Fantastic learning experience. Still, I could see where it might have been crushing had it come any earlier in my development.

I'll own up to mistakes made along the way, too. There were groups I joined simply because I could. They weren't a good match. Like trying to figure out dating, there's just no way to get out of it without hurting someone else or being hurt yourself. It's part of learning who your matches are. All you can do is try. And then try again. I'm lucky. Persistence paid off in spades. I have so many great critique and beta reading options - people writing and reading in my genre who know the market I'm writing for. Not a one of them is afraid to pull a punch because I'm tougher now. As my confidence has grown and as my trust in my crit readers has likewise grown, I want the bandages ripped off my story wounds. No candy coating. I know these people have my back and want my story to be the best it can be. So I want to get on with making my story better.

It took years to get here. It took some tears. I wish there was a formula for instantly detecting trustworthiness I could offer you. But I'm afraid this is all one grand experiment. Pretty much like the rest of life.

Feedback: When is it DNGAF vs Useful

How do I know who to trust with my work, at which stages, and how much weight do I give their input?

~rubs neck~

This is sort of a work-backward topic for me. First question is: do I have a legal obligation to someone? E.g, a publishing contract. If yes, then they get to have input in concept, completed draft, and final edits. There's a legal document that says who gets to have a say, in what, and what the consequence are for ignoring them. Easy answers there.

If I don't have a contract, but I have an agent, I am likely to seek their input on "what's next." Eg. I'm tossing around three concepts, which is the one they feel most able to sell?  To me, an agent is there to help me plan my career short and long term as well as sell my manuscript(s) to publishers. Some people have agents who also provide editorial feedback in addition to career planning and mss sales. If edits are part of the established relationship, then value your agent's opinion or get a different agent.

If I have neither a contract nor an agent and all decisions are mine, then I default to my gut. I'm not a sharer of concepts or incomplete works. I'm the Critique Partner who will hand over a completed draft before I solicit feedback. In reverse, I'm the Critique Partner who is most effective when I have your completed draft. My editorial strengths are in the development of plot and character. If I don't know where your character is headed, I can't really tell you if an explosive action response is the best next step. I have had potential CPs who worked best exchanging chapters so they were receiving near-constant feedback. I wasn't the right fit for them. I didn't like them any less as people, we simply weren't compatible as CPs.

Beyond the CP stage, I trust the professional editors I've paid. I've had one crappy dev editor, and the rest have been amazing. I've learned that I need to tell my editors if I have specific questions or perceived story issues, so they know--that in addition to whatever they find--they need to also acknowledge whether my issues are legit or "just me."

That's my process. While I don't like brainstorming my concepts with other people, I love brainstorming other people's ideas. Yes, it's a double standard.

Dear Readers, if you're questing for sources of feedback, the first question you must ask yourself is "what do I want from the people with whom I'm sharing my ideas/work?" Be honest; otherwise, you're in for a boatload of butthurt on both sides. Some authors need adulation, encouragement, and positive feedback only. They're not emotionally prepared for someone to respond with constructive criticism. Similarly, the "constructive" part of criticism is a skill that requires practice. Tact and tone are hard to convey in "track changes." If you're open to critique, great, but everyone has different thresholds and tolerances for how much and how phrased. Communication is key to fine-tuning any relationship. It's okay to say, "Hey, this [specific example] is a little harsh for me. Next time, it'd be easier for me to hear the feedback couched like [specific example]."

So, the short bitchy answer to this week's question is: I trust people who've proven their value. Everything else is DNGAF.

Brainstorming, Plotting and Characters, Oh My.

Brainstorming: The process of idea generation, generally done as quickly as possible, often in a team so members can broaden their perspectives by feeding off of the ideas presented within the team.

Plotting: Figuring out how a story gets from beginning to end.

Where did these definitions come from? The crowded, noisy insides of my own head. Meaning that yes. I made them up. I did that because I wanted to drive home that these two activities are not the same thing. Nor are they interchangeable. I suspect for most writers (I know I'm one of them) brainstorming precedes plotting. That said, I believe the question was when should someone else help you brainstorm.

My answer: Any time. All the time. So long as it's someone else's work we're brainstorming. Leave my story out of it. Don't get me wrong. I love What-if-ing. I love asking questions about stories, finding the places that intrigue me about it and I love to start lobbing thoughts and ideas around. For anyone but me. Like James, I don't want to examine my ideas too closely when they are newly hatched and still fledging. They're too fragile for examination at that point. I want to sit with them in silence and see what develops. If I'm going to ask for brainstorming for me, it's going to be when I'm at least halfway through the book and 'stuck'. Then all I want is get out of whatever corner I've written myself into.

But plotting. Ah, plotting. If we're going to talk about that, it is important to impress upon you my theory that there are two types of plotters in the world. Possibly more. Regardless. The  two types break upon a single point of procedure: Do you decide what happens first? Or do you come up with characters first? (I'm that last one.)

Plot-driven writers seize upon an idea for a thing or a situation. Something like "what if Supreme Court Justices were being murdered to clear the way for new nominees?" (Not that this story idea occurred to me today or anything.) A plot driven writer could lay out the major story points without ever knowing who his or her protagonist was. Characters are slotted in somewhere, but they definitely show up after the plot has started taking shape. These folks usually benefit from brainstorming sessions more easily than their character-driven counterparts because the plot can be anything. It's freer form when you don't pin the plot to the foibles of your characters.

Character-driven writers might get an idea for a situation or for something that happens, but usually, there are characters already attached to the situation or event. Half the time, the characters show up and announce that you'll be writing their story thank you very much. For character-driven writers, brainstorming isn't very useful because these writers require that the plot come from the characters. These are the people who need to know what someone's inner wound is (a question Jeffe mentioned annoys her). These writers have to know what makes their characters tick because it's the places where the characters get stuck that the story starts. For that reason, these writers have to know their characters intimately. Everything that then happens in the story is designed specifically to hammer these characters at their weakest points so they either shatter or they strengthen. Character-driven writers end up elbow deep in the emotional lives of their characters - in fact, they require that - before they can begin plotting. That means that brainstorming with a group of people who don't have the same level of character knowledge just isn't going to work. It'll be an exercise in frustration for everyone involved. Most character-driven writers I know avoid brainstorming entirely, unless they are brainstorming for someone else.

So yeah. That was a really long way of saying, "It depends" in answer to the when should someone help you brainstorm or plot question.

At What Point Is Brainstorming Most Useful?

When do I solicit the ideas and/or opinions of other people for the sake of plotting? Uhm...I tend to do that after the draft is done, usually when a CP has returned it to me with notes of "Yawn" or "DUMPSTER FIRE" in the margins. At that point, the brainstorming is solving a specific problem. Too soon in the process and I'm paralyzed by the abundance of choice, the internal struggle to make it uniquely mine, plus all the fun of hatching evil plans as I write the draft is gone. I do plot, I do outline, and I do end up with a product that isn't similar to where I thought the story was going.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE brainstorming. Letting my imagination run wild with "what if" is a blast. You give me "nuclear physics" and I can get us to "were-chickens in outer-space." It's the best drinking game ever. Hell, I like so much, I'll do it sober with very little prompting.

However, when it comes to a story I'm actually going to write/am writing; that's me and my special weird having a grand old time before we expose it to anyone. Once we have, should my Dev Editor or CP make notes of "this is what I think you're trying to accomplish, this is how it reads, maybe try something like this," I'm all Gabrial Iglesias with the giggles, "Yassss, yasss!"

Every creative person has a different point in their process where brainstorming is most beneficial. There is no "right" answer just as there is no requirement that you take any of the suggestions hatched during a session. It's all about when and how you need your leeetle gray cells stimulated. (What? I know that's Poirot not Iglesias!)