What Happens Next

When I come up with ideas for stories, they are usually flashes. I get an idea for a scene or a character trait. I do not have the entire story unfold before my eyes. That flash stays with me. In my head, I try to figure out what the whole story is, but I have trouble with it. I can only hold on to the flash.

The only way that I can move on is to sit down and start writing. I have to write out the scene in my head. In the process of doing that, the next scene or the next element of the story reveals itself to me. And that next scene is just like the original flash; I won't be able to figure out the rest of the story until I write it out.

I can't know what happens next until I write what is happening now. I think this is appropriate, though, because that is just how memory works. We can only hold so much in our head actively. If we try to keep too much in, it just spills out and we forget it. On occasion, I try to fight this and map out a whole story in my head. Every time, the same two things happen: I struggle to get anywhere and I forget it all in the blink of an eye.

As frustrating as this is, it can also be motivating. It is very easy to spend a lot of time in your head; there's a lot of thinking involved in writing. But since this requires you to write in order to think, you have a fairly strong impetus to actually get some writing done.