Young Writers Society

Hello everyone,

Well, I have had an idea in my head for years, and I am finally beginning to write it down. The entire thing was in my head for all this time, and I've smoothed out many wrinkles by thinking about the problem.

But have you ever come to a place in your story where you say "Man, I know where I'm going, but I've got to get my main character on the road,"? For example, in my story, the main character, Zelda, has to go into hiding because she was nearly assasinated. Then, the assassins kill all her guards except one, Darren, (The other main character) and burn down the safe house. Now, I've gotten to the point where Zelda and Darren are on the run,going from hide-out to hide-out.

But that's not getting me anywhere is it? In the course of the story, they have to go into enemy territory for some reason, (possibly forced by the assassins,)and go from misadventure to misadventure, finally having to steal something.

Now you can see two gaping holes in my story, right? One: They go into enemy territory... why, exactly? And two: what the heck are they supposed to steal and why?

The frist, I think, could be easily answered with some thinking and lots of junkwriting, as I call it. (Junkwriting is just scribbling down whatever it is you're thinking at the moment.) But the second, ah the second. Why are they stealing this? What brought them to the stronghold where it's kept?

There is an answer that presented itself to me not a moment ago: CHANGE THE GOL DARNED THING. Changing a storyline is allowed, after all. So, lets see... instead of breaking in, they have to break out, because they were captured. Easy enough. And they must have this object, as it will be important to the story later on. Let's say it is a medallion or a ring or a staff. Why do they have it? Because they ripped it out of the king's grasp in their desperate bid for freedom.

Now do you see what I'm doing? Talking to you, I've given myself a hundred ideas. This, above, is my Junkwriting. I just talked myself through the problem and now I have solved it.

I'm not sure what this whole thing was about, but I hope you learned a little from my wonderful, problem-solving junk.

Questions? Comments? Please let me know! And keep it clean, please.

-Kelcia

Yay for junk writing. But seriously, that stream of consciousness stuff can actually make for good writing. It's in a lot of top tier novels like the Iliad, I believe. Also, it helps you get out of tight spots a lot. At least, I hear it does. I'm cursed, and nothing can help me.

Well, Critiq, I felt kind of silly when I first heard about Junkwriting. But I tried it, and I actually did write down whatever I was thinking at the moment. I believe the first words I typed were: "This is stupid." Eventually, I ended up describing random aspects of my room, just because I was sitting around with nothing to do and a blank windows document open. Just type whatever comes into your head, even if its "My foot appears to be very footlike this evening." Anything. After doing this a while, some part of your brain will realize, that "Hey! He/she wants to write! Better think up some ideas quick." And then you write down those ideas as they come, for come they will, eventually.

That's basically how it works, more or less.

-Kelcia

I really like this idea. I find it very helpful to say the dialogue that you want your characters to say out loud, and kind of act out your character. I begin to know them more, and know what they will say next!

I like Junkwriting. I've always called it freewritng, but Junkwriting is a better term. I'll use it from now on. The technique has been helpful to me too in the past.

And I bet you're glad you thought about your story before writing those plot holes into a first draft. I wish I'd done that on the first novel (attempt) I wrote.

I have to say I like the term free rather than junk. Junk seems to set you up for disaster; if that is what its named then what else can it be but junk? Whether it ends up being junk or not, it certainly isnt constrained writing. So freewriting it is. I love freewriting, stream of conscienceness, its where I get my very best ideas. I just sit down and write soemthing like "Diary of a Supervillian." or "I decided that my computer is nothing more than a liebox." And there, two ideas that can go anywhere, or you can save them for somehting else. Without freewriting, my world would be a dark and empty place.
This is how a journal, just sit down for five minutes at a time and pound out whatever's in my head for five minutes and then stop. I love it, it keeps me healthy and sane.