> > I'm reading the book "Mugging the Muse: Writing Fiction for Love AND Money" by Holly Lisle. She gives very good ways to get ideas for stories, plus how to write conversations, etc.
>
> On a mildly related topic, would you know of any sources for information on how to fill in the middles of stories? I can usually come up with a background history and an ending, but the transition and introduction always seem to escape me.
>
> --Pliff"Oodles and oodles of empty story shells"ilif

Hah. My problem is similar. I have about a gazillion ideas. A lot of them start out as short stories. Then I start to develop the characters, love them, and I get an introduction and a conclusion and they get to be War and Peace length in my head(another of my problems is I have a hard time doing the actual WRITING. It's not that I don't like it, I LOVE to write, but it always looks wrong and discourages me. Gah, stupid low self-esteem). I have an awful time coming up with a conflict. Weird as it may seem, I often have ideas which have no conflict, just a situation which happens. So I usually have to think of a conflict. When I do it's usually a psychological conflict or somehow I trap my character so that it can't actually do much. So I'm usually quite light on the middles. I sympathize Pliffilif. Writing is hard!

Mel"Imagination is so much fun. Why does writing have to be so difficult?"anie