Deeper and Deeper

In Madonna's #2 Billboard hit Deeper and Deeper , she echoes Julie Andrews in saying "When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything." And this, I realized, was how I approach creating stories. The "notes" I refer to involve the amount of background material I gather for most aspects of a story concept I have in mind. When a concept hits me and I decide that it would make a great story, I do sporadic research and make a mind map in my head. If you didn't already know, a mind map is an organizing tool akin to thought training. But instead of a "train of thought," you're creating a "network of related thoughts." As I build this network of thoughts, ideas for plots come about, and it becomes a matter of finding the best plot and the best subplots, and linking them into a story framework that intrigues me enough to make a follow-through. I also get launch points for building characters, their background, and how they'll f