Can I apply software development and management to story writing?
The trend is to work in small increment, subdividing a task in a number of tinier task, that you estimate you can tackle in a short period, a week or two.
This works great in software coding. You enrich your program, your game, step by step, functionality by functionality. Can I write more/better that way?
First step: the idea
I usually have one precise feeling, idea, moment I want to write about. I later add the rest of the story. I am wondering if I focus on what I really want to write from the start, the cool fighting scene, the despair, the revival... and build around that. Some examples I have been working on:
Pretty spiderwebs in the winter
A normal girl saving a kingdom
what if we all lived our life like Benjamin Button?
Second step: the plot
How could I summarize my soon-to-be-written masterpiece in more sentences or a small paragraph? How can I add more layer to my oversimplified scenarii? This step isn't the hardest one as I don't write at that time. It still goes into my head only, where only my imagination, not my skills, can limit me. Expanding the previous sentences, we could get something like:
Malika was chosen to solve the kingdom problem: where did the night go? The king did not believe such a small girl could achieve this feat alone. He decided to join the quest, as he was also a knight. The girl has a horse, the a powerful beast which courage seconds none but Malika's.
A spider was sad to be invisible. It made its spider web before a cold night. It froze to death but the web become a necklace of snowflakes, no more invisible.
Our society has two phases. You choose an age at which your body reverse. From baby to kid, from kid to adult, running away from old age. On this fleeting society, two souls met and decide to experience life unlike everyone else.
The hard step: expanding the story
That is where I am usually out of breath. I can keep the edge on my story. Life happens and it gets boring. Maybe writing in iteration will let me explore the different feelings of my created world in a better way. Even this post followed the same process.
The contests I find here are perfect to practice. They should and are helping me greatly in this learning process.
What do you think?
How do you write? Would it suit you to write iteratively?
Pictures unsplashed
@jyezie