Literature - Concept Preparation - Roareye Black

Welcome to the Literature Tutorials. This tutorial will give you key notes in how to formulate a unique concept for a story.
Please Note that you should never edit Literature works that have been created by other Artists, nor their original characters, only use original characters and/or characters from within commercially released games (As long as you're not writing for profit). This tutorial has been created by Roareye Black and is copyright to him.

Once you've gotten the basic idea thought out and you've started to evolve the story, you've likely already got planned some dramatic and/or action packed scenes that you want to include. That's great. However before you delve into writing (As fun as that will be) you want to just take a moment to prepare yourself a little for the task you're about to undertake. This is only a short stage, but it will help you keep your focus on your work.

The main thing to do is write down a small amount on each of the scenes. A paragraph or two on how you want the scene to run like, and where it's place is in the main story. This way you can work out what scene are necessary and gripping, and which seem to be just uneccesary filler. Filler parts in plotlines will always make your story drag on, so if you seem to have a filler scene, either get rid of it or add something in there to make the scene a necessity.

A good example of scenes that look like fillers but are in fact necessary to the story are seen alot in Quentin Tarentino films. For example the opening restaurant scene in Reservoir Dogs, or the scene in Pulp Fiction between Samual L Jackson and John Travolta talking about the name of burgers in Europe. In terms of general storyline, these are useless scenes. What stops them being filler scenes is the way they're written, these scenes give you a deep insight into the personality of the characters you're watching. It's a useful thing to know, because sometimes you'll find a filler scene where you can't inject more raw story, but you don't want to lose it. If this happens, make it about the characters and really evolve thier personalities during the scene.