I used to take notes about my stories, and I still do (any ideas I have after drafting, I’ll compress into a few short sentence fragments enclosed in brackets at the end of the manuscript, to serve as a placeholder for my memory), but other than that, I stopped taking notes because I ended up scribbling nonstop at red lights, at work, in the middle of dinner…I might as well have spent my entire day writing the actual story.
What I later came to realize is that my subconscious already knows what I want to write–when I sit down to draft, the ideas spring up at the right moment, without any prompting. Conversely, when I tried to commit everything to conscious memory, I would end up scrapping a ton of what I had planned to write, or trying to shoehorn in scenes that no longer worked. That led me to believe creative narrative is unfailingly abundant (maybe infinitely so), and, subsequently, I learned to trust my instincts and feelings when I sat down to draft. As hokey as it may sound, notes are great, but they’re nothing compared to what you already know in the depths of your spirit.
That’s how it works for me, anyway.
Explore the Worlds Behind the Stories
Kent Wayne’s ideas about storytelling, power, and human nature appear throughout his fiction.
If you’re curious how those ideas appear inside the stories, start with the Unbound Realm.
If you’re still exploring, follow the ideas:
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