: Re: What are the first things I should do with an idea? I have a lot of ideas for things I want to write, but I usually end up getting lost in a stream-of-consciousness and either lose interest

@Gloria285

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As justkt said, everyone is gonna have their own method. This is mine:

Try to summarize the idea into short, detailed sentences. What works for me is to fit in as much of the premise as possible. Then, following that, put down any minute details that you want to include. The idea here is to include everything you'll need to rebuild the idea exactly as you had it, even if you've forgotten it in the meantime.

For example, I recently wrote a short story about a man who lives his life waiting for his big break, expecting it to come to him as his birthright, dying alone having done nothing in his eighty years. My original note to myself was along the lines of "man waiting for American Dream, expects it without working for it, dies unloved" <- that there is the premise part. Then -> "man takes unprofitable major in college like film studies, smokes lots of pot and drops out; man works at walmart; doesn't get good grades as a kid" which are the original details that came to me. I saved all that stuff and came back to it a few days later, and from that skeleton I was able to reconstruct my original idea and write it.

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