I wanted to talk about the way I tend to write a couple of my stories, and I’d be more than happy to show you the process I follow, as well as try to answer why I don’t publish so often, which may be the question that no one asked. Except maybe a few.
Reading has been a huge part of my life since I can remember, The Neverending Story first opened the door to me for more advanced books (and I read it because as a kid I enjoyed watching the movie time after time), well, more advanced books for kids. The Tunnels saga showed me a more fictitious way the world can be, and how it may take only the mind of two regular people to share a world they had dreamt. In the most recent years, and those who personally know me may already be tired of me repeating this, my favorite authors have become Neil Gaiman and Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
Gaiman showed me a world full of fantastical beings, how regular people (just like you and me) could take matters into their own hands and fight for their beliefs, or even to save a loved one. Zafón showed me an image of a city he loved, he opened the doors to a Barcelona which is so old that (at least to me) you can picture in black and white. What these authors have done with their minds, their characters, their villains, and more, is one of the main reasons I decided to start writing whatever came to my mind.
As I said in my first post, I write for myself, and these stories contain characters that I want you, the reader, to understand, to empathize and you to root for, doesn’t matter if the character may be considered a “villain” in classical terms. The only way I can improve the way I share with you the scenarios that pop into my mind, into my dreams, is to put them out there.
Everyone can write, the main thing that may be different between you and me is the process we each may follow, and that’s not bad. Think about it, whenever someone was tasked on writing an essay, an article or something like that, everyone follows a different process, and that applies to storytelling.
My process is kind of odd, odd in the sense that I tend to experiment with it. My main tools are my computer or tablet (in which I wrote and revised this post), my notebook, a pen, and a pencil. I carry a notebook everywhere I go to because I don’t know what ideas may pop into my head whilst enjoying an evening out, and I do tend to carry only a pencil for those occasions.
Just a quick glimpse at the notebooks I carry.
As for the pencil and the pen, I carry both of them in my backpack whilst going to my night classes (postgraduate classes so I can become a data analyst, but I’ll talk more about that on another post).
I’m more of a writer, in the sense that I enjoy describing my characters’ feelings and the environment that surrounds them, also because it’s kind of easy for me to do so. That’s what the pen’s for. Whenever I have an idea for an environment, or for some sort of event that I don’t know how to describe, I draw it (although I’m terrible at it).
If you haven’t read my short story titled “The Dark Alley”, then I highly recommend you read it first here, so you can avoid the spoilers I’ll be talking about.
The Dark Alley was my first (I believe successful) attempt in writing a sort of horror, thriller story. I really can’t call it horror, since I had no intention of generating gasps pop out of your (the readers) mouths.
You can also find the link to my short story here.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
If you read the story, then you may be able to remember the plot as well, as the characters, but the main thing I want you to try to remember right now is my monster’s description, there’s just one detail (and if you read until this part without remembering it, this is your third and final warning regarding possible spoilers).
The original idea for Dark Alley before I published it
Well, I’ll asume that you have already read it and are ready for it, and the thing I’ve being warning you the most about is, that my monster has no description.
You can re-read it anytime you want, but that detail never changes. It’s a monster with no bodily descriptions other than the way it behaves and a couple of lines of dialogue it has with the protagonist, Thomas.
This was one of my toughest stories to write because of what I told you earlier, I had the idea of the setting and a basis for the plot, but I had no idea where to start. So I took my trusty pencil out and started making a sketch of the alleyway in which Thomas Brooks would be forced to face that which all of the inhabitants of X. City daren’t face.
In my notes, I hadn’t thought of the characters’ names nor the way the monster would look, I just knew I had to write about that alleyway. Many of my Mexican friends may wonder if I based this story in the legend we tend to hear about el Callejón del Aguacate (or the Avocado Alleyway, for my English speaking friends), and the truth is, I didn’t.
This story came from a nightmare I had a couple of weeks prior to it’s publication, and one day whilst I was brainstorming, it reappeared in my mind. After writing the initial sentences, you can find them in the picture I added, I didn’t know which way to follow, so I started drawing how I pictured the place.
The name of the city does mean something, and those who know Spanish may read it in the current story that I’m writing, but I won’t spoil that here. The main point of this story is the one I tried to make with my spoiler warnings, the monster has no description, the city has a name but I know that almost everyone who’s read it may relate the city to another one they’ve visited or even heard of.