Ideas: Think Differently

by Deren Hansen

Like the old beer commercial where people argued whether the best thing about the brew was that it, "tastes great," or that it's, "less filling," writers persist identifying themselves as, "plotters," or "pantsers."

If we must have distinctions, I think, "architect," and, "gardener," respectively are much better labels.

But we'd be even further ahead to view architecture and gardening, not as defining our nature as writers but as techniques in our toolbox that we use--like an artist uses pastels and oils--when appropriate.

I came across evidence, on the PsyBlog, that I'm not entirely out to lunch for thinking such a thing. They describe a study, in a post titled, "Unusual Thinking Styles Increase Creativity," in which people who solved problems "using systematic patterns of thought" (rational) and people who solved problems "by setting the[ir] mind[s] free to explore associations" were asked to change their problem-solving style.

The researchers wondered if people's creativity could be increased by encouraging them to use the pattern of thinking that was most unusual to them. So, those people who naturally preferred to approach creative problems rationally, were asked to think intuitively. And the intuitive group was asked to think rationally for a change.

Participants were given a real-world problem to solve: helping a local business expand. The results were evaluated by managers from the company involved. When they looked at the results, the manipulation had worked: people were more creative when they used the thinking style that was most unusual for them.

One of the reasons this may work is that consciously adopting a different strategy stops your mind going down the same well-travelled paths. We all have habitual ways of approaching problems and while habits are sometimes useful, they can also produce the same results over and over again.

The parallel should be clear: architects (or plotters) prefer to write rationally; gardeners (or pantsers) prefer to write intuitively. You likely feel more comfortable in one mode or the other. But if your deeper goal is to write creatively you would do well to switch up your style.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: The Hallmarks of a Good Idea

by Deren Hansen

It seems only proper, after encouraging you to distrust your first idea, that we should look into the question of how you know you have a good idea.

Of course, it's not possible to be certain you have a good idea until you test it on others. If it were, we'd have institutions that follow the model of drug companies devoted to finding and exploiting as many good ideas as possible. So the good news is that no one has a monopoly on good ideas. The bad news is that the best we can do is find heuristics to help us sort the good ideas out from the bad.

One of the best heuristics I've found is that good ideas have a longer shelf life or more staying power than mediocre ideas.

I once heard of a couple who didn't buy anything until they'd talked about needing it at least three times.

Similarly, if an idea comes back to you at least three times you may be on to something.

But by, "comes back to you," I mean something more than simply remembering the idea. When John Brown talks about creativity, he emphasizes, "zing." That's John's way of saying the idea gives you an electric shimmer along your spine each time you savor it.

Good ideas are the ones that still deliver that zing when you come back to them the third or fourth time.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: Don't Trust the First One

by Deren Hansen

I've encouraged you not to stop with one good idea. Implicit in that advice was the assumption that you started with a good idea. Being certain that you have a good idea is much harder than recognizing when your idea falls short of good.

The first litmus test for a poor idea is simple: is it your first idea?

In the game show Family Feud, the challenge wasn't to come up with the correct answer but to guess the answers most likely to be given by the hundred people surveyed. Of the four or five hidden answers, the top one or two usually account for more than half the responses. That is, the first answer that came to mind for a person taking the survey likely came to mind to every second or third person taking the survey.

As we've often observed, 'novel,' means, 'new.' If you go with your first idea, you stand a good chance of going down a well-worn path. If you want to be a novelist, you must internalize Monty Python's catch phrase, "And now for something completely different."

But this isn't novelty simply for novelty's sake. The deeper question is how can you take the raw conceptual material and make it your own.

Chances are, your first idea really isn't your idea. (Why, after all, did so many of the people surveyed for the game show come up with the same answer?) It's simply the first association that bubbled up into your consciousness. The first association is likely the strongest, having been reinforced by external influences. To make the idea your own, you need to let it steep in your unique soup of mental associations until it morphs into something that's unmistakably you.


Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: Strength Through Association

by Deren Hansen

You've likely heard the spiritual, Dem Bones, and know that the toe bone's connected to the foot bone, and the foot bone's connected to the ankle bone, and so on. It's both an anatomy lesson, of sorts, and reference to the Biblical prophet Ezekiel's vision of a valley of dry bones.

In the vision, Ezekiel prophesies, as commanded, to the bones and they come together, bone to bone, and sinews and flesh until "and exceeding great army" stands before him. Without delving into the religious significance of the vision, we can appreciate the structural significance: by themselves, the bones are dry and impotent but in proper association they become a strength and a beauty that is greater than the sum of its parts.

One of the strengths of the mass of interconnected neurons inside our skulls is in making associations.

I've talked before about story molecules: how a single idea isn't enough to carry a novel, which is why you need a constellation of ideas, working together, to sustain a long-form narrative. Associations are what bind those ideas together.

Think of it this way: if ideas are points, associations are the lines that join those points. Two point can be joined with one line. With three points, each can be connected to the other two with three lines. Four points have six lines; Five points have ten lines; and six points have fifteen. Each time you add one more idea, the number of possible connections jumps. It doesn't take many ideas before you have a rich web of associations.

Another way to look at it is that associating two ideas is a simple way to create a whole (the associated ideas) greater than the sum of the parts (the ideas in isolation).

Let's play a game: we'll start with one object, a gun, and associate it by proximity (i.e., placing it next to) another.

• What comes to mind if we place our gun next to a shot of whiskey?
• Now, what comes to mind if we place our gun next to a pair of baby shoes?

Associations become even more powerful if we link ideas into a chain. There was a fascinating series on PBS called Connections, in which host James Burke showed how an event or innovation in the past traced "through a series of seemingly unrelated connections to a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world."

The associations in your stories need not be so profound, but you can use the same principle, particularly when brainstorming, to turn common-place ideas into something special.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: How to See Something Special

by Deren Hansen

I once heard a rabbi, speaking to a mixed audience, say, "You know the story of the Burning Bush and how Moses turned aside to see it. I like to believe that Moses wasn't the first to see the burning bush, but that he was the first to turn aside." (See Exodus 3)

While taking care not to conflate writers and prophets, one of the fundamental ways writers can get ideas is by being willing to turn aside and see something--even something incredibly ordinary--in a new light or with new eyes.

Something happens to us as we morph from children into adults: we move from a world of concrete and specific things into a world of abstractions and classes. The process is innocent enough. When a child points at the feathered creature hopping across the lawn and asks, "What is that?", they want to know about the specific one in front of them. But we answer, "Oh, that's a robin." In doing so we give the child a word for a class of birds, of which the specific one they see is only a representative. In time, we stop seeing that one one bird and instead see a robin.

What, then is the technique for seeing something special where others don't?

Like the child, ask, "What is that one? How did that one come to be here and now?"

Human language is powerful because of its abstractions, generalizations, and indirections. Most people use that power for their own purposes without realizing the degree to which they are, in turn, controlled or at least constrained by it. Writers, who regularly wrestle words to make meaning, are among the best equipped to get out from under the oppression of the abstractions and turn aside, like Moses, to "see this great sight."

I won't promise you a revelation, if you turn aside, but you're likely to see something special.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: Random Name Generators

by Deren Hansen

A question commonly asked of writers is, "How do you come up with names for characters?"

The technique for finding names presented here is a good example of the general habit of wondering how the things you notice came to be that way--which seems common among the good writers I know.

The pattern is simple:

1. Find interesting names
2. Play with the history implied by the name.

Interesting names appear all the time in the written and spoken environment. I once noticed glycol ester of wood rosin among the list of ingredients in a bottled drink. Instead of fretting about obscure food additives, I wondered how Esther Glycol, the Regency-era daughter of an impoverish vicar, came to be mistress of the estate of Woodrosin. (You didn't know you could get that much from a list of ingredients, did you?)

If you need to find names more quickly, you can play the phone book game: open to a random page and drop your finger to find a given name or a surname. On one occasion, when I needed a set of modern, ethnically diverse names, I collected all the surnames and given names from the credits of a recent movie

I've written simple programs that randomly combine names from two or more lists of the lists I collected. If your list of surnames isn't too large, you'll get several first name/last name pairs and it's easy to imagine they're related. Not only will you have names, you'll have genealogies, and perhaps some ideas about family histories as well.

I've also used this approach to assemble names from syllable lists for fantastic or alien characters. One nice result of this approach is that the names sound like they came from the same culture because they're assembled using the same rules.

The important thing is to generate a number of names and then choose the handful that speak to you. Play with the names that are most evocative and see what else springs to mind.

I have to be careful when I play with names because it's so easy to find interesting names and invent histories and relationships that I inevitably collect more names than I can use and spend more time doing so than I should.


A Sample of Name Generators on the Internet

• BehindTheName.com is a site for the "etymology and history of first names." It has a generator that can be restricted to particular ethnic groups.
• There's a US Census-based name generator at http://www.kleimo.com/random/name.cfm
• Seventh Sanctum™ has a cornucopia of fantasy/gaming-inspired name generators for everything from people to pirate ships.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: Don't Stop with One Good Idea

by Deren Hansen

Animator Patrick Smith, writing at Scribble Junkies, shared some of John Lasseter's advice in a post on the 7 Creative Principles of Pixar.

The first principle is, "Never come up with just one idea."

Here's how John explains it:

“Regardless of whether you want to write a book, design a piece of furniture or make an animated movie: At the beginning, don’t start with just one idea – it should be three.

“The reason is simple. If a producer comes to me with a proposal for a new project, then usually he has mulled over this particular idea for a very long time. That limits him. My answer always reads: 'Come again when you have three ideas, and I don’t mean one good and two bad. I want three really good ideas, of which you cannot decide the best. You must be able to defend all three before me. Then we’ll decide which one you’ll realize.'

“The problem with creative people is that they often focus their whole attention on one idea. So, right at the beginning of a project, you unnecessarily limit your options. Every creative person should try that out. You will be surprised how this requirement suddenly forces you to think about things you hadn’t even considered before. Through this detachment, you suddenly gain new perspectives. And believe me, there are always three good ideas. At least.”

The first key here, and it bears repeating, is, "this requirement suddenly forces you to think about things your hadn't even considered before." There are a lot of people out there having good ideas. If you stop with your first good idea, chances are very good that someone has already thought of it. But with each additional good idea you bring to the table, the chance of someone else thinking of the exact same ideas drops dramatically.

The second key is the perspective you gain through detachment. That is, if you have more than one good idea then you've got a fall-back if one of the ideas proves less good than you thought. More importantly, you can compare and contrast the ideas and get a better sense of their relative merits than if you have only one, precious idea ... gollum.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: Rebuttal Theory and Adding to the Conversation

by Deren Hansen

I once heard that Shannon Hale's approach to retelling fairy tales is motivated by the question, "What's bugging me about this story?"

I started thinking seriously about this question after reading several books that bugged me enough that I wanted to make a rebuttal (it's hard to set aside old debating instincts). It's not that I had problems with the books themselves as much as some of the ideas in the stories.

Two interesting things happened as I thought about the ideas that bugged me in each story and they ways in which I might handle them differently:

1. I was drawn into the "normal science" process of thinking through each idea (that I described last week) and uncovered a host of interesting ideas.
2. The different lines of inquiry came together as a fascinating story molecule.

Shannon's question, "What's bugging me about this story?" is a powerful idea generator if you follow it with a second question: "How would I do it differently?"

There's another important consequence: as you work through the ideas until you can clearly express what bothers you about the story and how you would handle it differently, you find you have something to add to the conversation.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: What do you do with a Great Idea?

by Deren Hansen

What do you do with a great idea?

First, a reminder: one idea isn't enough to carry a novel. Long-form stories are best understood as a complex molecule made up of great idea atoms.

So, what do you do when you have a number of ideas in intriguing relationships?

Like any good evil genius, you turn to science!

Kuhn, 1962 (from Wikipedia)

More to the point, you turn to the history of science. Thomas Khun, a physicist who also studied the history of science, wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962. In that book, Kuhn challenged the notion that science was steadily progressive and argued that it is in fact episodic.

The two key ideas I want to introduce here are the alternating phases of revolutionary and normal science that make up an episode in Kuhn's model.

Revolutionary science is the time when a breakthrough throws the field wide open. Like settlers pouring into newly open territory, scientist rush from one discovery to the next as they map out the new landscape of possibilities.

Once the early leaders in the revolution have discovered the extent of the breakthrough, the discipline settles back into normal science mode. Normal science is far less glamorous than revolutionary science because it's about the careful work of confirming the initial findings and filling in the details.

"That nice for historians and scientists," you might say, "but what does it have to do with writing or creativity in general?"

A great idea is like the breakthrough that triggers a period of revolutionary science. But that's only the beginning of the job. In order to develop a novel-length story, you must do the literary equivalent of the work of normal science.

What do I mean by that?

Let's say you've just had an epiphany: the world will end when pigs actually start to fly--it's the Flying Pig Apocalypse! Tingling with excitement, you sit down to write ... and immediately run into questions: how do they fly? Levitation? Wings that grow because a mad scientist wanted bacon-flavored buffalo wings? Lighter-than air gas bladders? Do they flock or are they loners? Do they cause the apocalypse by flying, or is the fact that they take flight a sign of the impending apocalypse?

My point is that a "great" idea isn't ready to become a story until you've done the detailed, far less thrilling work of thinking through the implications of the great idea.

Like science, which we tend to think of only in terms of revolutionary breakthroughs, creativity is more about the normal work of thinking carefully about the "great" idea than the revolutionary work of having the idea in the first place.


Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: Stories are Molecular, not Atomic

by Deren Hansen

In The 5,000 Finders of Dr. T, a strange and delightful musical fantasy created by Ted Geisel, there is a climactic scene that includes the following lines:

"Is it atomic?"

"Yes, sir, very atomic!"

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (Wikipedia)

You will, of course, have to see the mover for yourself if you don't understand the reference. I mention it here simply to lead into a discussion about the fact that novel-length ideas aren't atomic, they're molecular.

I first heard this concept from Brandon Sanderson. The essence of the notion is that if ideas are atoms, a single one isn't enough to carry a novel. You need a number of ideas.

But it's not simply a case of arranging a butterfly collection of ideas. The ideas must be related. Brandon described his process of developing a novel as, "bouncing ideas off each other to see which ones stick." ("Stick," here, means, "form interesting relationships.") As ideas stick together, they form a story molecule.

So, how do you build a story molecule?

Begin with the basic creative process: ask questions and then generate lots of answers so that you can find the most interesting associations. Often, the best associations will be between something common and something, which in the context of the first idea, is surprising. In The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, we have something common, a boy who wishes he didn't have to practice the piano, and something surprising, his piano teacher's plans for world domination!

When people ask where the ideas in a novel came from, they generally assume that the book was produced through an alchemical process that harnesses mystic forces to transmute the base metals of common ideas into the gold of a finished story. The truth, like the transmutation of alchemy into the cold, hard science of chemistry is more prosaic. Like chemistry, which produces complex and beautiful molecular structures through a series of processes, the final form of the story molecule in a novel is the result not of mystic transmutations but processes that anyone who is patient and persistent can master.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Ideas: Creativity

by Deren Hansen

A question commonly asked of writers is, "How do you get your ideas?"

There are many answers (including facetious ones, like, "I buy them wholesale from the idea distributors,"). This post is the first in a series exploring techniques for collecting and assembling ideas.

The people who want to know where writers get their ideas assume writers enjoy a generous endowment of creativity. Creativity is defined as, "the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas."

Many people treat that ability as something innate and quasi-mystical. The problem with believing that ideas spring forth from a fount of creativity is that if you don't have a great idea handy then you must assume the well has run dry and you're stuck until something happens to get your creativity flowing again.

John Brown fell into this trap for a number of years before he discovered the secret to the creative process and went on to write Servant of a Dark God.

Here's John's mystic secret to the creative process:

Creativity is asking questions and coming up with answers.

A bit anti-climactic?

Perhaps I should clarify: a creative person doesn't settle for one answer to each question. If you stop after the first answer, you've done nothing more than identify the "traditional idea." Before you choose an answer, you want to come up with as many varied solutions as you can, particularly unexpected solutions. Given a large enough pool of candidate ideas, it's much easier to find "meaningful new ideas."

So how do you prime the creative pump?

Pay attention.

Notice things, particularly the things that strike you as interesting or intriguing. John says you should collect things that give you a little, "zing," when you hear or read about them.

If you'd like another perspective, spend ten minutes to hear what John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) has to say about Creativity.


Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Writing is an Exercise in Delayed Gratification

by Deren Hansen

Writing can be protected in the U.S. with a copyright but not with a patent.

What's the difference?

Patents protect ideas. Copyrights protect the expression of ideas.

This means there's nothing to stop you from writing a story about a boy wizard who falls for a sparkly vampire while they're trying to survive as contestants in a blood-sport arena. The fact that other writers have already expressed those ideas in books that achieved commercial success doesn't necessarily stop you from expressing the same ideas. (As long as it is a new expression and not plagiarism or a cheap knock-off.) What matters, both in the eyes of the law and in the marketplace, is the quality of the expression of the idea.

Like the experiment in Plato's Republic, where Socrates examined states in order to understand personal virtue, there's an analogy between copyright law and the delicious ideas that spring up as you imagine the story you'll write. 

In your enthusiasm for those ideas, you'll be tempted to share. There's nothing so heady as cornering someone who will listen to you and explaining how great the story will be. It's all present and vibrant for you. Of course, what you really want is the validation that comes when someone else acknowledges your ideas.

But the fact of the matter is that great ideas about what could happen in your story are meaningless until you express them (i.e., write them down). Put another way, if, like the tree that falls in the forest, no one else can appreciate the idea in its expressed form, then for all practical purposes, it didn't happen.

At a personal level, this means that the satisfaction of someone saying, "Yes, that's a great idea," must be delayed until you've found a compelling way to express that idea. And if you're looking for acknowledgment from a circle larger than critique partners, beta readers, agents, and editors, you'd better be prepared to wait years between the idea and its publication.

From The Mailbag

The last time I opened my mailbag on this blog the world changed, so I thought I'd do it again. Regular readers (and if you're irregular, they have medications for that now) may remember that my mailbag contains letters I would have received had people known they could write to me to ask me important questions of the day. If people only knew how much I could enlighten them and how much joy I could bring to their lives, the bag would be full, so I'll pretend it it is and ask myself the questions they should have asked. Oh, and if that credit card company realized how much most writers make, their application wouldn't be the only piece of actual mail I got today.

So, without further ado, here goes.

Dear Mr. Ropes,
My friends tell me often that I tend to repeat redundant phrases again and again when I write. I don't know what that means. I try to completely eradicate those pesky pests, but they keep telling me the exact same thing every single time we meet together. I think they are over-exaggerating. Can you help me by spelling out in detail what they mean?
Thank you,
Phil from Roosevelt

Dear P from R:
This is a common problem, one many writers struggle with. You've come to the right place for help, let me assure you. Let's look at your letter, which includes several redundant phrases. "Repeat redundant (whatever) again and again" is almost too obvious to mention, but I guess it's too late for that now. Let's keep looking. Eradicate means to do away with. If something is eradicated, it no longer exists. So there's no reason to put completely before eradicate, which is complete by nature. Likewise, pests are always pesky, exact and same mean the exact same thing (couldn't resist), adding single to every doesn't really add anything except maybe some emphasis, people who meet are always together, and all exaggerations are over-stated, so you can leave off the over. Finally, if something is spelled out, it is already demonstrated in detail.

You can find a lengthy list of many of these phrases online, at http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/redundancies.htm.

Hey Scott-Dog,
I want to be a writer. I know can put grammarical sentences together good and I liked the book I read back in 4th Grade. My problems is, I can't never come up with a good idea for a story. How do us writers get our ideas?
Lenny from Price

Dear Lenny,
Two things. OK three. First off, if my wife hears me being referred to as a dog, she'll make me stay out back. See, she's a cat person. She doesn't mind dogs, but a dog in a house full of cats is an invitation for trouble. So let's knock off the Scott-Dog business, OK?

Next, ideas. Writers are constantly bombarded with ideas. Sometimes they come in dreams. Sometimes they come from our life experiences. We might see a picture or a news story that triggers an idea, or hear an unusual snippet of conversation. Traveling is another good way to generate ideas, because when you are somewhere new, you usually pay closer attention to your surroundings, opening yourself up to the idea fairy. (Note, Lenny, that the Idea Fairy doesn't actually exist. This is just an expression.) To get an idea of where some writers find inspiration, check out this blog post and be sure to read the comments.

Finally, I recommend to any new writer (and this is by no means meant as a personal criticism of you), that he refamiliarize himself with the rules of grammar and good writing. Many of us start writing seriously long after leaving school, and can use a refresher. There are many ways to do this, but websites such as http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ are a good place to start.

Scott Sweetie,
I was going to do your weekly laundry today but I noticed there were only five pairs of undies for seven days. Sunday and Tuesday are missing. I even looked under your bed. (You should do something about those dust mice.) Did you forget to change, Honey?"
Love, Mom

Mo-o-o-m, how many times have I told you? Not at the office, OK? Geez, mo-o-o-om. Seriously?
Love you, though,
Scott
PS:
Can we have Pesketti with hot dog chunks for dinner? I love Pesketti with hot dog chunks.

Dear Ms. Rosie,
You see all and know all. As do I. Except for one thing I don't see often enough. I have read many articles about what I should include in the query for my 72,000-word fictional picture story, but I don't hardly ever see anything about what I shouldn't say. Any tips?
Leslie from Draper

Dear Leslie,
We've never actually met, have we? You seem to make a couple incorrect assumptions about me, although you have the see all and know all thing pretty much right.

You are in luck. As it happens, I (coincidentally, can you believe it?) just read a blog post on this very (this very: see first question, above) subject. I refer you once again to the Books and Such blog, which is quickly becoming one of my go-to writing blogs.

From Idea to Story

By Julie Daines

Scott's great post, "Where Do You Get Your Ideas" has made me want to post another follow-up article: Taking those ideas and converting them into a story that works.

As writers, we are constantly collecting ideas, but rarely do those ideas come complete with a 65,000 word plot. Here are three simple ways to help convert those seeds into a whole story.

1. Take the idea and infuse it with conflict. This is sometimes called the "what if" game. Drawing on Scott's description of the Chinese restaurant where a unique cast of characters are assembled: What if the the TV they are watching suddenly flashes a warning, there's been an attack on the United States? What if there's an earthquake and they're trapped? What if a diner didn't like his Mu Shu Pork and opens fire on the patrons?

Keep the conflicts piling up until you've got a whole story of rising and falling action. This especially works good for plot-driven stories. If you want a more character-driven story, keep your first idea intact, but then carefully explore number 2.

2. Create characters and give them some wants. You can take an idea and turn it into a premise by exploring the main character. Start by giving your main character some basic characteristics. Don't worry if they sound cliche, the deeper character development will come later. Then start brainstorming what that character wants, and then the why they can't have it. Be sure to use action words.

Take the caucasian couple in Scott's restaurant. You can't just say John wants to date Sally. You have to add verbs and be specific: John is desperate to prove to Sally that he is not just another stupid high school jock. Now add to that more action questions: How will he do that? Does he have any skills that might interest Sally? Why does Sally hate Jocks...  And you can turn your premise into a story--especially when the earthquake hits.

3. Adaptation. It's been said that there are no new stories, just different ways of telling them. Different characters, settings, and so on. I believe this is true.

Folk tales, Shakespeare, old classics... many of these can be updated and used for inspiration. The advantage is already having a plot set-up that works. And by the end, your original source will most likely not be recognizable.

In this one scene from the chinese restaurant you've got the makings for a cinderella story--only make cinderella the dishwasher boy in the kitchen. You've got Romeo and Juliet with a chinese girl who wants to marry a caucasian man. And so many more...

Anyway, good luck taking your seeds and growing them into a beautiful, mighty oak.

"Where Do You Get Your Ideas?"

by Scott Rhoades

One thing many writers hear often from friends is the question, "Where do you get your ideas?" Often, this question is phrased as a statement like, "I would love to write a book. I just don't have any good ideas for a story."

For many of us, this is not an issue. Rather, we wonder how we'll possibly find the time to write turn all the ideas we get nearly every day into stories. It takes an instant to think of a story, or enough of one to work with, but it takes months or years to actually write it.

The difference between us and them is that, generally speaking, we pay attention. We have to watch people to know how to depict them, and we are aware of things in our environment that are just different enough that they inspire a story.

Some of us have learned to pay attention. Others, like Harriett the Spy, are filled with a natural curiosity that makes us watch what people do and notice the oddness around us.

Many beginning writers learn by playing with writing prompts from books. Many experienced writers still use those prompts for practice and exercise. A lot of us, though, don't need those. We find prompts around us.

Like a situation I found myself in tonight. I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, waiting for my takeout order. A TV was tuned in to one of those weird competitions that are all over the TV these days, where people basically do real-life video game stuff, jumping through impossible obstacles and loudly beating their own brains out--but muted and with captions turned on. The people in this one were dressed oddly, including an older guy in a swirling tie-dyed t-shirt and what looked like the most hideously strange shorts or swim trunks ever produced by a blind clothing designer on acid. The muzak system was playing a very cheesy, arpeggio-laden, piano-only version of "To All The Girls I've Loved Before."

There weren't many people in the restaurant--an older Chinese woman with a younger Chinese man at one table. A youngish caucasian couple at another table. Out of my line of sight was a family (I assume) with a young boy who was constantly exclaiming reactions to what was happening on the TV. Soon after I sat down, a young African-American woman came in, also for take-out, and sat at the table where they had us wait. Add to that the emotional state I was in, about two hours after learning that my grandmother had passed away.

Everything you need to start a story can be found in that description of the scene. Start asking questions about the people, throw in some what-ifs, and put them together with the odd combination of things in the setting, and you have a better prompt than you'll find in any writing book.

I'd love to do something with it, but I have too many writing projects going already and the magic I felt from the situation is fading after a series of phone calls with family.

But if you like to work from prompts, or if you want to write but can't find any ideas, there you go. Play with that one. Better yet, keep your eyes open. I guarantee you that if you pay attention and look at things from a slightly unorthodox angle, you'll find several writing prompts today, while you go about your normal business.

Where do I get my ideas? I'm surrounded by sources, all the time. So are you. You just have to notice.

What's the Big Idea?

I once read that if you can’t state the theme of your writing in one short sentence, your story has serious problems.  So, I’m looking over my writing and asking myself, “What’s the Big Idea?”

What is the basic theme to what we write?  Is it “Be yourself?”  That’s certainly common enough in children’s literature.  Is it “Everyone deserves a second chance?”  Or is it “Anything worth having is worth fighting for?”  Or maybe even “Love is blind?”

A theme can strengthen our writing in two important ways: first, it helps to focus the plot, and second, it gives our story added depth.

Fiction is a place where broad ranges of experience can be brought down to the individual level.  In the end, that is what readers care about anyway—the struggles, experiences and growth of the individual.  Fictional writing is a place to explore what it means to be human.

Most of our writing has a theme, even if we didn’t do it intentionally.  Taking the time to recognize those themes and then build on them throughout the plot will transform our writing from a “fun story” to something that has universal and lasting meaning.

Deborah Perlburg gives us three questions to help us dig deeper and find the big idea.

1-What is the overall point of my story?

2-What do my main characters learn?

3-How do my main characters change at the end of their journey?

Don’t worry if your theme sounds the same as so many others.  That’s the beauty of universal concepts; they can “generate countless different plots and stories.” 

Stories that make good use of a theme linger in my mind for days after I’ve finished the book.  When I read books that have won awards, such as the Newbery, I find that these are the authors who have taken a universal idea and brought it down to the individual level in a masterful and meaningful way.

We can take our writing up a notch by using themes as a foundation to give our stories added strength.