I've an idea for a story, but I can't write it

[Solister]

So, I've just searched this on the internet, got no answer.

As I've said here a few times (And even wrote a topic about it), recently I've written a few stories just to pass the time, however something is surrounding me on those last weeks and it's very annoying. If you've checked my stories topic, you might have noticed how many canceled stories I've (Which is almost as the same as the numbers of the stories I've published). However, most of them went canceled for the same reason.

I always used to hear that people says that have an idea and having a title for a thing is the hardest thing, however this doesn't seems to apply for me. Generally, I've a nice inspiration for something, I can create a nice plot and even found a good name for it, however when I open my writing program, it's seems the story doesn't want to be written. Like, I've a mini resume of the story plot ready in my head, but I can't expand it, and made it a great story. I can't found a way to make it bigger and don't became just a 7-line text as the idea I've planned.

I don't know what I can do, all my stories sounds great for me, but I can't develop it and make something really interesting to people read. I've tried to listen to music while writing (Which always give me great ideas), don't listen music while writing (To get a better concentration), remove my internet access (Then, I couldn't be distracted with something else/Internet is necessary for grammar and spelling checker), change the physical location where I'm writing (Tried my 2 desktops and my bed). But nothing really gives me something good to start developing the story concept. So, did some one have any good tip for me? What I can do to develop my stories better?

[Alienrun]

If you want to get better, just write and don't question it, you'll naturally get better with time (I'm sure your familiar with the whole first, second and third draft thing...and that you don't show your first draft to other people)

Otherwise, you might not need to write EVERY idea you have down...some ideas are better saved as just ideas, once you have the whole thing fleshed out in your head and know what you want to write down, then it'll be easier, but if your too spontaneous you might not feel motivated to finish till the end...

(And yes I've taken online book writing courses so I have a bit of an idea of what I'm talking about...)

[Tara]

There's a saying that there's no such thing as good writing, only good re-writing.  Many novelists start by planning novels for months before they ever even sit down at a keyboard.

The easiest thing to do would be to just start writing whatever's on your mind.  Write the scenes that you know you want to write first, then work on contextualizing them later.  For example, if you have an idea for an interesting romance scene, write the romantic scene first and then work out the before and after later.  If all you have is a concept, just start writing out the concept.  And don't undermine the importance of an outline.  Having a flexible (but not too flexible) outline of your plot will help you stay on track and give you some steady direction.  Also remember that not everything you write has to be for a wider audience.  Write down something just to get it out of your head.  You'll be surprised what you come back to revisit, even for completely unrelated narratives.

Hope this advice is helpful.

[Solister]

9 hours ago, Alienrun said:

If you want to get better, just write and don't question it, you'll naturally get better with time (I'm sure your familiar with the whole first, second and third draft thing...and that you don't show your first draft to other people)

Otherwise, you might not need to write EVERY idea you have down...some ideas are better saved as just ideas, once you have the whole thing fleshed out in your head and know what you want to write down, then it'll be easier, but if your too spontaneous you might not feel motivated to finish till the end...

(And yes I've taken online book writing courses so I have a bit of an idea of what I'm talking about...)

Thank you with the advices. About the drafts, I'm still quite unsure. Right, I haven't revealed to anyone what  my new story is about (which I'm working in like a month and actually just finished 2 mini chapters (Almost a page each one), and mostly have the full story concept in my head). I haven't told anyone what about the story is, and much like I've just revealed the title (Which doesn't reveals too much, which I even thinking in change). But I think people might wanna see what I've planned, maybe not now which I'm not so famous, but I think people would be the same excited to see a lost concept, as much we fell when we see a cancelled Sonic game, or any prototype info, for example.

About the idea, you made me remember one of the few things which I really felt important when searching in the web. Someone said that it doesn't matter if you cancel a story, it much like warning you that you've a better idea (In fact, it's something true looking how many old ideas I've reused in my stories which came from my older concepts). And well, I've already write a "script" for the story, where I put a few characteristic of the characters, tried to "design" a few scenes, and I always like too much to work with useful quotes, which is thinking ideas I've and I try to put it on a scene, it's been pretty useful in my last story

8 hours ago, Tara said:

There's a saying that there's no such thing as good writing, only good re-writing.  Many novelists start by planning novels for months before they ever even sit down at a keyboard.

The easiest thing to do would be to just start writing whatever's on your mind.  Write the scenes that you know you want to write first, then work on contextualizing them later.  For example, if you have an idea for an interesting romance scene, write the romantic scene first and then work out the before and after later.  If all you have is a concept, just start writing out the concept.  And don't undermine the importance of an outline.  Having a flexible (but not too flexible) outline of your plot will help you stay on track and give you some steady direction.  Also remember that not everything you write has to be for a wider audience.  Write down something just to get it out of your head.  You'll be surprised what you come back to revisit, even for completely unrelated narratives.

Hope this advice is helpful.

I've liked what you said about the re-writing. As I've said, I already write the story concept (Which gave me almost 7 lines of text), however, something I didn't mention which always make me worried of what I'm doing, is in how much time I taking to finish my story. Like, my last "big" story was in February, which I had worked during my whole December-January vacations. I fell bad for not having a "margin" of time, in like "How much time I should wait to have a good idea for the plot, or cancel everything and starting working on something better?". I'm much like saying this, because I use to see my statics of reading in my publishing website, and much like after two weeks since I've published the stories, the numbers get down to 0. Funny that hours later after I posting this, when I was in the bad waiting to sleep, I've got an initial idea for a scene which might be essential for the story, and don't worry, I've already write it on my cellphone and rewrite on my notebook with the other concepts.

And well, thanks for the other tips, I hope they be very useful.

[DarkRula]

I might not be much help, but I do know that Tara is right about the outline. If you have an idea, before you get settled on the actual writing, it pays to outline the idea in full - from start to finish - to see if the idea works as a story and help you not get stuck in the future.

For instance, my first two self-published books had the outline in place. For each chapter, a brief outline of each event within the story was written down that I could work from. My third had the first few chapters use this method, but then I got complacent - since this time I was using an episodic format - and further episodes had very little planning so I did struggle. I had nothing to refer to except what had previously happened. With the fourth I've just started, I again know exactly what is happening. I've gone for a different method this time, using chapters and parts. It's working as well as my previous method, so no matter how you outline the idea, it's going to work and keep you writing.

Don't feel the need to jump right in with little planning. My early works from pre-DarkRula Media days were like that. All but one are now history, and the one that remains does so simply because it was part of a larger project.