Idea Mining—where to get ideas for
your story
In my last blog I said I
was going to discuss “Idea Farming.” However, it dawned on me that you have to
have an idea before you can farm it. So, this blog will be on where you might
go for overall ideas for stories.
There are three sources
for ideas that I use with regularity. First, we’ll look at each as an
independent entity.
Real life. Events that really happened are excellent sources
for ideas. They nearly always have a ring of truth to them, and they usually
provide key plot points you can incorporate.
In one of my upcoming
novels, The 5th Page
(scheduled for a summer/fall 2015 release), a friend, and former police
officer, told his story of why he left the police force and became a pastor.
Since the idea of transitioning from police officer to pastor intrigued me in
and of itself, and the minimal details he was allowed to provide based on the
circumstances of his separation from the force provided significant tension, I
thought it was an ideal story idea.
So I wrote a novel about
it.
After my friend read the
book, he returned it saying, “Thank you.”
“Oh, no,” I replied. “I
should be thanking you.”
“You don’t understand,” he
said. “Now I know how the story ends.”
That’s what a fiction
writer dreams to hear.
However, there are some
critical points to keep in mind and essential policies to keep when converting
fact to fiction. But more about that in my next blog.
Published material. Since you can’t copyright an idea, existing
stories can provide ideas. There is a limited number of plot situations
possible. “Georges Polti was a 19th century French writer [who] described 36
situations that may be found in many stories, based on the list identified by
Goethe who said it was originated by Italian Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806).”
From: ttp://www.changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/polti_situations/polti_situations.htm
While Polti’s list is extensive,
it, like nearly any list, is most probably incomplete. However, when teaching
high school biology, after the Advanced Placement Biology Exam, my AP Bio
students wrote a science fiction story—after all they had all taken 3-4 years
of science and had listened to my stories for at least a year.
To be fair, I also wrote a
story while the students were writing one. To even the playing field a bit,
since I was writing short stories regularly, I allowed the class to pick three
numbers from 1-46. Those were the required plot situations I had to include in
my story. In addition they got to select two major characters—ranging from
students in the class to Sponge Bob and Chuck Norris (in the same story!).
Finally, they were allowed the select the science
upon which my story was based.
I will admit that is
probably not the best way to mine your story ideas, and many of the stories
were cheesy. However I, and some other teachers, have used two or three of
those classics to pique interest in a topic for various science classes. The
basic outline of one of them is the structure for one of the stories in my
Traveler’s HOT L series.
Dreams, etc. Never discount your own brain as a rich source of
material. I have learned to get out of bed and write down ideas when I wake up
in the middle of the night. Sometimes I read skdf solsnof soo s alsno, or some such iteration of what I was
thinking. But, most often enough of the dream is there to allow me to recall my
thoughts and use them.
Keep a pencil and paper on
your nightstand!
Next Blog: Idea
farming—growing your plot
My website is: www.crdowning.com
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