I’ve actually been writing since I was about six years old, so I’ve got 28 years of experience under my belt ranging from short stories to my ever delayed novel (got to finish that at some point). My most recent love for writing is comics, which I’ve been reading for over 25 years, but, believe it or not, my first comic book scripts are less than a year old! The idea of telling a story doesn’t change, though, regardless of the medium. What changes is the syntax (format) and how you set up a scene. I’m going to start, though, on things that apply no matter what kind of story you’re telling and what format.
I have five phases for writing… Idea, World Building, Character Building, Events, and Drop In.
Today, we’ll talk about the Idea Phase only…
Idea Phase – This is your brainstorming phase. As soon as you can after you have your original light bulb go off, sit down and write out as much as you can, stream of consciousness about the idea… Even if it’s garbage, get it down on paper, on a file, or something so you don’t lose it. This is the trick I use when I have a particularly profound dream that might be of some creative use later. Even if everything changes from this point, just get it down. If you don’t know names, write something generic or “insert name here”, doesn’t matter. This is the foundation for what you will work on later.
For me, when I’m writing this initial brainstorm (I call it a brain dump), I may have chunks of dialog, chunks of plot, key words to remember, list out events that pop in my mind, clever phrases, etc… What you write isn’t as important as writing itself. You never know when those initial thoughts are going to hit, so writing them down before they are diluted by time and tangents is key.
I’m going to share something here no one has seen…. well just myself and my best friend… Originally, Faction was imagined as something called the Resurrection Man before it was combined with another idea to become Faction as we know it today. A lot of things have changed, but here’s a chunk of my initial brain dump.
The Resurrection Man ~ agent of the Almighty resurrected again and again to fight the forces of evil in the “real” world. Book would take place in modern times and the character would be a retired wartime medic turned mystic. Runs a new age shop in San Francisco during the day and fights the forces of evil at night. What makes the 
guy special? He has a few minor abilities bestowed upon him (different each life), but also has access to memories of the different people he has been since he was first born, tim e not determined yet. Some things are blurry if he tries to think about them directly, but things just “come to him” from his past to help current endeavors. Helps with the “mystic” aspect of the character because he can have no clue of something one minute and gain some insight seemingly from the hereafter, but really from his history ~ a conduit to his eternal soul traveling through its path. He’s one of a set number of these kinds of beings, 7 total. They were originally created to fight “The Six” who are the agents of the devil on earth… These creatures change their aspects when the die, but they never die. Whatever will strike the most fear in the world when they come back is what they will be… If it’s the boogie man, that’s what they’ll be… If vampire’s were in a big buzz that year, they’ll come back as a vampire…. The trick is that they have the abilities as though they’re the real thing. What starts as fiction becomes reality… The first vampire was inspired by a legend but created the reality of vampirism in the world. Same with werewolves…
This was actually followed by character names I came up with wandering the web looking at different cultures and naming conventions. I won’t list those out because they may give away parts of the plot of Faction I haven’t hit yet.
Another example is from the original notes for my short, “Just a Cup of Coffee,”
Robbery from a crook’s perspective. Break into bank, get gun in people’s face, etc… Look over his shoulder to see a hero shake his finger at him, then punch him into a wall… In the real world, it would break every bone in his body.
You ever have one of those headaches you get when you wake up late and haven’t had that cup of 
coffee you really need? Today started out just like that… I was out late with the boys, shootin’ the breeze. Get home late, a little tanked, wife was already sleepin’, woke up long enough to shoot me a look, you know the one… Next time I’ll be a little quieter. Woke up… calmly… huh… Why’d we get that place by the tracks? Oh yeah, fifty grand less than the one she wanted. I’ll never hear the last of that one. XXXX it, she drank the last of the coffee… Post it “Get more coffee… if you can get off your XXX long enough” pile of bills…
Go to the convenience store, 7-11ish place… card declined… cash, none… god XXXX it!
Meet up with the boys… You ready to do this? Anybody got some aspirin? No man?
Get to the bank.
As you can see there, it’s kind of all over the place, but it was enough to get my memory stoked when I moved on into the next phases. There’s more to the notes from this one as well, but it gets the point across…
Just get it out of your system until your fingers hurt and your brain is dry… go back to it again a few more times if you can to flush things out…. Then, I think, you’re ready.
Next Phase coming soon!
