I Know What Happened Method

Original Post: 27 April 2012
Posted Here: 4 December 2017

My favorite method for writing is the “I Know What Happened Method.” Unfortunately, it works (for me) only with short stories.

The story comes to me more or less intact from beginning to end.  I was standing at the sink doing the supper dishes when How Long Would It Take to Walk from Here to Atlanta If You Had a Limp? (including that long title) popped into my head. I woke up one morning with a dream in my head that was the story Incident on 1 October. Neither of these are science fiction, but they are examples of stories that, like Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, would have to say “I s’pect I just growed. Don’t think nobody never made me.”

When this type of story comes to me, I write down what I know of the story in an “outline” form before I “forget” it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my “outline” is not a formal outline with headings and subheadings, etc. I just write down a list of phrases or sentences that specify what events take place in what order. Then I go back and start filling in the details. 

Regardless of which method, or combination of methods, that you use, I would make one recommendation: Tell the story to no one until you’ve got it written!  I have found that writing involves a “need” to get the story told, and if I tell it to someone before writing it, that need is fulfilled and it becomes difficult if not impossible to get it written down.

Once you get the story written, telling it to others, verbally or by letting them read it as we do with a critique group, can become part of the revision process. No matter how I write a story, getting to the end is just the first step. After that comes the editing and revision.

Keep reading/keep writing – Jack