In this entry I'd like to address the shaping of a story. When I speak about shaping, I'm not talking about plot elements, I'm referring to the move from a cloudy haze (or perhaps a complete blank) into a solid, though probably simple, idea.
I begin nearly all of my stories with a search for a plot. (I say nearly because I have started with a character before and worked to fit the story to him, but that isn't my usual process.) When the plot is crafted it will contain at least two elements, the main character(s) and the conflict. In many cases, I'll also have a setting.
For my current project, I started with the question, "What would I most like to read right now?" The answer, at that time, was "A workplace romance."
A brief point: Yes, the beginning of my writing process is about reading and my own opinion. Although I desperately want everyone to read and enjoy what I write, the person I most want to please is myself. I'm not interested in "catering" to an audience. If everyone else hates it, I can still say that one person loved it. For me, the most important thing is to be able say that I'm proud of my writing.
I liked the idea. A workplace romance offers all manner of choices for conflict, as sexual harassment, equality issues, and even the rumor mill make a real life workplace romance very challenging. The possibilities for conflict were wide open!
Having settled quickly on a general concept, it was time to get specific by answering more questions:
- What does the company do?
- What size is it? (small business/large corporation/etc)
- What is the work environment like?
The more of these questions and others like them that I could answer, the easier it was to begin shaping characters.
- Who would work here?
- Which department is the setting?
- What kind of background (education/experience) would the employees have?
As you can see, I actually developed the setting first, and then began imagining the people that would fit in this setting.
The main characters and the conflict between them is the next step. Because this story is a romance, I didn't feel I had much to decide. I like romances that are told from the third person focusing on the two people who are involved in the romance. If I wanted to write a love triangle, I might have a third. In my case, I didn't want to inject another person into the mix in that manner, so I was able to settle on two.
Continuing to stay very general, I thought about what jobs my two main characters would have at the company I'd already created. Because I'd decided on a software company, I chose to give both my characters programming backgrounds who had moved into management. Why? Because it easily established a natural conflict, they would both be competing for a promotion. This seemed a perfect conflict for a workplace romance because there is not only the competition between the characters and therefore an obstacle for them to overcome to become a couple, but also the question of staying together when one receives the promotion.
At this point, I had a pretty rough story idea. Two competing managers in a software company finding love against the odds.
As I actually began to develop my characters, I created more intricate backgrounds and some inner conflict as well. I'll address this in part 3 of this series.
If you have questions or thoughts to share about this post, please leave a comment.
