›
Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime

train of thought

LizyLizy
edited July 2015 in Writing
Do you ever track a train of thought back?

This morning while showering my thoughts went from 'haircut' to 'erosion' so quickly that I had to trace it. Here goes:

Haircut - basin cut - Beatle cut - Mull of Kintyre - cliffs falling into the sea - erosion.

Sometimes I think that's how plots evolve - what do you think?

Comments

  • Baggy BooksBaggy Books
    That is fascinating.
  • neilneil
    Why stop at 'erosion' lizy? Sigmund Freud would have had a field day with it. Perhaps that's why you did stop!!
  • LizyLizy
    I stopped because I was clean and needed to get dry!

    You can't force a train of thought - it just happens.

    Haven't you ever tried to trace one back?
  • Mrs BearMrs Bear
    Yes, I do it quite a lot, because I'll suddenly launch into something that comes at the end of a long train of thought and Mr Bear looks at me as if I'm totally bonkers. The truth of that apart, I then explain how I got there.
    Nature abhors a straight line.
  • Phots MollPhots Moll
    Gosh no, I've never tried to work out where my seemingly totally random thoughts and ideas come from. I might discover there was no logical connection at all.

    I do think you might be onto something with this sort of thing being the origin of plots though. Sometimes I think I'm thinking about something else and then realise I have a story idea going on instead.
  • LizyLizy
    Back-tracking only works if you catch it quickly - more than two minutes and you might as well not bother!

    Sometimes, though, a person pops into my head - alive or dead - and it's intersting to find out what triggered the memory. Often it's an object but sometimes a song, a scent, a fleeting glimpse that I was only half aware of.
  • LizLiz
    edited July 2015
    OH hates my trains of thought, especially if I've been chatting and then jump to a completely different (to him) subject.

    If I'm with a woman I find they are perfectly able to follow the connections even subliminally and and are able to answer/carry on talking/get the connection/understand what i'm on about even if I've missed a few intervening stages.

    But plots are more rational, surely? Don't you have to make the leap first and build round/through it, unless you are free writing in which case your brain can do what it wants?

    Having said that., I've written things where it seems to flow out of me, and only after I realise there are lots of connections and echoes in the writing which I was not conscious of.
  • ana sana s
    Interesting. Losing the plot means losing the rational, coherent structure of thought so I guess plot building is very much like you suggest. I suppose the art is in choosing the train that is credible without being predictable.
  • Phots MollPhots Moll
    Finished plots generally need to be rational, Liz - but that doesn't apply to the process of creating them.
  • LizyLizy
    What Phots Moll said.
    Where do you get your ideas from? is a question often heard by writers, and to me the answer often is 'No idea - it came out of the blue'.

    That of course isn't strictly ture, it's simply that I can't recall the convoluted train of thought that ended in a plot.
  • CarolCarol
    What Phots Moll said.
    Where do you get your ideas from? is a question often heard by writers, and to me the answer often is 'No idea - it came out of the blue'.

    That of course isn't strictly ture, it's simply that I can't recall the convoluted train of thought that ended in a plot.
    Sometimes I can recall what starts an idea, but I don't have a long train of thought about it.

    Though that's probably because it starts as visuals in my mind...

  • heatherheather
    I think my train driver is on strike
  • LizyLizy
    Oh Heather - poor you!

    Try looking at a random series of photos online - I can always think of a story to go with the photo prompt on Friday Fictioneers, so maybe Carol's visuals would work for you?
  • CarolCarol
    edited July 2015
    The stories that work for me are always the ones that start from a visual prompt, so try it Heather.


  • JMNyeJMNye
    You can always try thinking about your family or the people you went to school with. Usually starts quite a train of thoughts for me.
  • datco2014datco2014
    I struggle to remember what I had for lunch.
Sign In or Register to comment.