Just Another Week in Suburbia: Methodology and the Other Characters
I don’t start writing anything until I have a rough idea of the story I want to tell. As I write, ideas will occur to me that might or need to happen later. I dot point these. In the case of Just Another Week in Suburbia, which was set over seven days, I also drew up a table with columns for each day, and would dot-point where applicable. (Things still changed.) Often, I’ll realise that something needs to be foreshadowed earlier or revised. I’ll make a list of these revisions, and attend them at the beginning of each writing session. That helps me get straight back into the writing since…
Just Another Week in Suburbia: The Passive Casper
The best stories feature characters who take journeys. And that doesn’t necessarily mean geographical journeys, but intellectual, emotional, and spiritual journeys. The simplest example is Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit. While he does take a physical journey, it’s all about how his adventure shapes him, and who he becomes: he goes from a meek Hobbit to a bold, courageous leader – a Hobbit who would dare banter with a dragon and betray a friend to broker peace. I’d written other stories where characters took physical journeys, and their change is a byproduct of their experiences. But now I was interested primarily in focusing on the character’s growth. Part of this…