A quick little Zettelkasten fancy… Let us whisper of a dream…

What if bottom-up writing/notetaking/thinking (same thing) works just as well, if not better, for fiction as for non-fiction?

Why do stories need to be conceived top-down? Who says that’s a rule? Stories are more freeform than arguments even. Aren’t they?

What should you do when that moment of inspiration strikes? That character, that single scene, that feeling, that image… What if you just wrote it down for fun, not even knowing if it ever might make its way into a story?

Would you capture more of these moments?

What if your Zettelkasten conversation partner could become your dialogue partner for workshopping scenes?

What if doing this were fun, not “regardless of whether it was for some ultimate purpose,” but for no purpose at all?

What if your high concepts for movies could be captured not just as crude, ill-conceived instructions for how to build a hit movie, but as thematic threads that weave together with other themes you’ve shown interest in over time?

Then they begin to demand supporting characters…

What if there were fleeting notes made up only of images, from which sketches of scenes could be explored just for fun? Why does writing need to be in letters of the alphabet?

Why couldn’t a reference note simply be an argument you overheard between lovers on a street corner?

What are the “Literature Notes” for that? What was the couple really trying say to one another, in my own words…?

If the bottom-up Zettelkasten is, as it appears to be, a perfect invitation to explore more deeply and more playfully without any need to know an end, a goal, a neat little purpose, could it extend the same invitation to story?

Let us whisper of a dream.