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Q&A How specific should I get when brainstorming with what-if exercise?

Not a direct answer to "how specific", but a technique you might find useful not to get bogged down in details: instead of writing a list, make it a tree. In your example, "writer", "actor", "prog...

posted 6y ago by Galastel‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-12T21:57:37Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43620
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:22:33Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43620
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T11:22:33Z (about 5 years ago)
Not a direct answer to "how specific", but a technique you might find useful not to get bogged down in details: **instead of writing a list, make it a tree**.

In your example, "writer", "actor", "programmer" are all children of "talent". "Talent", on the other hand, is the only child node of "doesn't want to work with his father". Having arranged your ideas like this, you immediately, visually, see where you are going after a multitude of sub-sub-sub-branches, and where you haven't explored other alternatives at all.

When I'm unsure how my story should develop, I find it useful to construct such a tree with about 3 children per node, and I usually make it about 3-deep. That said, my 3-deep wouldn't be just variations on a theme (writer, actor, programmer), but directions the story could go - choices a character makes, or something that happens to the character. Then the next step would be possible consequences, etc. I'd be looking for significantly different options, so I could weigh them against each other.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-03-16T10:33:11Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 3