Let’s Keep things Simple. When writing any piece of story text the ONLY essential is YOU MUST HAVE A PLOT!
Something (a series of events has to happen). If you like it is a journey from point A to point B with things that happen in between. OUR WHOLE LIFE is like this, it’s a shared common experience and so coming up with a plot is an almost natural thing for anyone to be able to do.
The PROMPT for ‘writing’ is an idea. The human mind is very creative and thousands of ideas run through our minds every waking hour, so there should be no shortage of them. AND YET! sometimes it is so difficult to decide just what to write about. “The Writer’s Treasury of Ideas by Linda Lewis” is our standard textbook of suggested topics to write about. So when your mind cannot grasp onto and retain one of its myriad of daily thoughts, use the textbook.
So, we have to have a plot!
How do we come by one of those?
Well, some writers sit down with a notepad and pen and pre-plan what the plot is going to be. Carefully plotting the who, what, when, where, why & how of their story.
Me? I can’t work like that! I just start writing and see where my writings take me. This for me is a much more exciting process because I don’t know where the heck anything is going with whom when or how. It just evolves. Now not everything written in this way is good. Sometimes I just write garbage. I create Plots that do not go anywhere, or do go somewhere, but for no discernable logical reason. So I have a big junk pile. BUT when inspiration is high, creativity at record levels, then the end result can be pretty amazing, far better than anything you could just sit and intellectually devise & plot.
