Story Architecture

by Pappy May 11th, 2005, Posted in: Writing


I’m a bit of an obesessive-compulsive. When I get into something, I tend to tackle it from numerous angles, map it out, plot pertinent information, and re-examine and refine ideas over and over again. I have reams of blueprints and whitepapers from every job, crazy business idea, and scheme. I even do it with computer games that I play.

As a systems architect by day, this is an invaluable character trait that’s led to a great deal of success. As a writer by night, it has a tendancey to stifle the creative process. I find it very hard to be sponteneous and to simply write.

So lately I’ve decided to take a new bent with my writing. Instead of swimming upstream and fighting it, I’ve been looking for ways to take the tools and techniques of system design and find ways apply them to my stories.

This blog is the centerpiece of that effort. Here I hope to “flesh out” the pieces and ideas for my stories. By doing this I’ll have a framework to write within that should open the creative side and THEN I can write the way I THINK.

I’m not sharing this with many people, it’s primarily a workspace for myself. But I welcome any questions, comments, and critiques you few readers may have to offer. Both on my stories themselves, and the writing process I’m mapping out here.