TECH: Harvesting Ideas?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 9 January 2009

Turning Ideas into Stories

Writer's Digest, September 2005, Fiction Essentials column by Nancy Kress has the title, "From Idea to Story." The focus is on how to go from the germ of an idea to a more rounded or complex story. How do you turn things like:

• a Russian submarine captain decides to defect to the United States
• an aristocratic lady has an adulterous love affair
• scientists clone dinosaurs from DNA preserved in amber

into books like The Hunt for Red October, Anna Karenina, or Jurassic Park? Obviously, take one idea, add characters, plot, outcome -- stir well, and there's your story, right? Well, that does sort of assume that you know how to develop characters, plot, and outcome. But at least these four questions will help you put some meat on the bones.

1. Who will this hurt? Answering this question helps you decide who will be the protagonist and the point of view characters. After all, there are always lots of people who could be involved in your story. How do you decide who to focus on? "Pick someone who stands to be really hurt." Someone with an emotional stake. Someone who may be crushed by the story events.
2. What can go wrong? "Fiction is about things gone awry." Now that you know who your key characters are, list possible things that can go wrong. Think disasters, thinks surprises, think antagonism. List everything you can think of, and then think about what happens next and what goes wrong with that! Somebody got killed? Okay, what can go wrong with the investigation?
3. What larger issue is at stake? By picking main characters who will be hurt, you also have an idea about what's at stake for that character. Now back up and ask what's at stake in the larger picture. Think about theme or moral point. Think about big scope, giving your story more depth.
4. Who pays? In fiction, in particular, someone has to pay the price. Who is it going to be? And what is that price going to be? Usually characters are caught on the teeth of a dilemma, and the solution often requires that they give up something even if they win. "The basic rule is inviolate: somebody loses, and somebody pays." It's up to you to decide who and what.

So take that germ of an idea, and use these four questions to help turn that idea into a story. Who gets hurt -- there's your characters. What can go wrong -- that's a plot! What larger issue is at stake -- there's the theme to go with the plot. And who pays -- there's your outcome.

Go ahead, thrash those ideas against the questions, and see what you come up aswith.