Story Ideas

We’re in the clouds. Have fun. Ask yourself, “What if . . . ?”

In my previous entries, we’ve explored acts by hovering above the mountain range of story structure, but let’s climb to an even higher altitude: story ideas.

We’re back in the clouds!

You think of a cool idea. You get hooked or obsessed or thrilled at the thought of . . . something!

This is absolutely how many of my stories start.

What if . . . ?

Wouldn’t it be exciting if . . . ?

Can you imagine if . . . really happened?

These flares of inspiration are often the fuel that keeps you motivated through the grind of working through all those acts and beats and chapters.

You need this spark of inspiration to keep you going through the long writing process.

At some point (or many points), you’re going to wonder, “How the heck did I get started on this story anyway?” And you can go back to the start of it, the first idea, the first “What if . . . ?”

Reminding yourself of your brilliant first idea can often reinvigorate your will to keep rewriting.

Maybe your flash of insight is a type of hero, a unique situation, a weird social ritual, some new technology, or a hybrid of situations or technologies.

Maybe you overheard a fascinating argument between lovers at a party, and their argument raised issues you’d never dreamed of.

Maybe you read a book or watched a show, and you thought you could do better with the same premise.

Maybe you’re just sick of something in the world, and you need to write it out before it drives you crazy.

I thought of my novel A Box Came for You while I was helping my son move into a new apartment. Boxes! Wouldn’t it be cool if someone took the wrong boxes and unleashed a curse?

I thought of my novel SmartHome Rebel while talking to a friend who loved architecture. Wouldn’t it be cool if a dying architect designed a home to raise his daughter?

I thought of my novel Monster Doctor one day when I was musing about the storyline of Finding Nemo: a dad goes on a journey to rescue his son. I thought I’d keep it that simple, too. A son goes on a journey to rescue his mom.

Notice I thought of these ideas when prompted by whatever was going on around me. I was helping my son move. I was talking to a friend. I was watching another movie. 

I wasn’t doing anything special. I was living life . . . and I was vigilant.

I was on the lookout for story ideas.

I wasn’t at work, but I was working.

Writers are always working because dreaming is the work.

Where do I work? I work when I’m staring into space . . . daydreaming . . . scribbling in a journal . . . walking in the woods . . . sitting at the beach . . . and, of course, sitting at my desk almost every day and writing something, anything.

Sitting at the beach and dreaming up story ideas? That’s my kind of day at the office . . . paid for, of course, by working a year of days at the office . . . or classroom, in my case.

During story development, I try to remember that this is playtime. This is fun. We’re playing. I’m playing. It’s easy-breezy up here in the clouds. I’m playing god with stories and characters, situations and genres. 

I can be anyone. I can go anywhere.

I can make anything happen!

So can you. You can make anything happen. You can write a story about anything. Let your mind wander . . . and then zoom in when something catches your eye.

Maybe you have one of those Alexa-type devices in your home. You talk; it listens. What if it recorded a crime?

That’s actually happened. You can Google it. And it’s the hook for the Steven Soderbergh movie Kimi (2022).

Fears are great sources of story ideas: fears of technology, strangers, heights, losing your mind, getting lost, being humiliated, being rejected. What are you afraid of? Now that’s a list.

I once opened a Google Doc and found cryptic typing from someone else. I know. So creepy. It was an invasion . . . an infection . . . a hack . . . a haunting! I hadn’t shared my doc with anyone. An evil spirit insinuates itself into everything an author tries to write. That’s a story I’ll write one day.

Sometimes I’m inspired not by fear but by consumer irritation. Why doesn’t this work better? Why doesn’t this fit me?

Take clothes.

What if you had a smart closet that created on-demand outfits just for you? You stand there, it does a quick scan, and you hit a button for the latest outfit recommended by GQ, Vogue, or Tan France from Queer Eye. Some kind of technology fabricates your fashion right there in your home, and off you go.

Who wouldn’t want that?

I had this idea ten years ago when I was a thesis adviser at MICA. I was talking to a student, and we were riffing on what fashion might look like in the future. I used this concept in SmartHome Rebel, but I haven’t based a story on the smart closet . . . yet.

Story Ideas Inspired by the Smart Closet:

Scary | The smart closet dresses the hero in a dead person’s outfits . . . or a serial killer’s outfits . . . and the person’s behavior begins to change.

Romantic | A misfit couple is thrown together to iron out the wrinkles in the prototype smart closet. Clothing snafus are funny and cute!

Techno-dystopia | An authoritarian government forces everyone into uniforms fit for the job that society requires you to perform that day. Clothes make the citizen.

That’s off the top of my head today, but that’s a pretty good glimpse into how I take a “What if” notion about technology and play with it. It also shows that you can take a concept and fit it to whatever genre you’re drawn to as a writer.

You can do the same with trends, habits, rituals, codes of behavior, even cultural taboos. 

First you have to notice them. It’s almost like observations from a stand-up comedian. “Ever notice how some people . . . ?” You could listen to stand-up comics, notice an observation that strikes you as funny about how we live today, and maybe invert that behavior or habit. Or reverse it.

I’ve always noticed how young children let you know exactly what they want. They beg and whine and try to get it for themselves. They throw tantrums if they don’t get it, but they giggle when they do.

What if adults in an office behaved like this? It would be fascinating to dramatize adults being blunt about their desires, stating them clearly, and throwing tantrums until they’re appeased. It’s the opposite of how most adults learn to behave, which is to suppress what they want and conceal their desires and deny themselves. At first, you think, “Adults acting like this is going to be bad.” But then . . . what if it’s not? What if it’s good? What if this is maybe even . . . better than life right now?

You can also find a story idea by messing with social rituals. Just ask questions.

What if we did this ritual for that group of people?

What if we celebrated this milestone of life instead of that milestone of life?

We make kids go to school to prepare for life as a young adult. What if we made adults go back to school to prepare for middle age . . . or for old age? I can imagine comedies about men going to a workshop to prepare for the mid-life crisis; women, for menopause; and parents, for when their kids move out.

So this is how I glean ideas from the world around me.

But I also look inward, not for the seed of an idea but for a way to project myself into the concept.

In other words, I try to imagine how I can become the secret hero inside the hero.

Yes, I need to create the hero of the story, but I as author have to become that hero and see the world from their point of view. I have to feel and sense and yearn and struggle.

I’ve found that I need to do this for two big practical reasons.

First, if I don’t identify with the hero’s desire, I can’t write the story. I write lifeless crap. I get lost. I get confused about what the character is supposed to be doing. The hero wants something that I don’t care about, so I stop caring about the story and wander off looking at something else. Aaaaand . . . we’re done.

Second, I get to live a life I’ve not lived but have dreamed about living. I get to pursue my dreams by inhabiting this hero. I get to pursue that dream in as big and bold and committed a way as perhaps I’d never do in real life. I can be that hero, whom I’ve never dared to be, and go on that journey, which I’ve never dared to begin. I can live that life in fiction. Talk about motivation to keep writing!

If you can identify with your hero’s desire and project yourself into their life, then, coupled with your initial idea, you’ve got a very exciting way to start thinking about your story!

After all, you have to hang out with this hero for a good long time, maybe months, maybe years. You have to write two hundred pages about them. You might as well get fired up to live that life!

Or . . .

Or play. Goof around. Keep it light. This is free! This is fun. So play with any sort of idea that comes to you. You’re sitting on the beach or sitting in your bedroom. You’re staring into space. You’re letting your mind drift.

“What if . . . this?”

“What if . . . that?”

Just imagine.

_____

PHOTO: Story ideas? Look around.