Creative Writing 101

Lesson 3: Ideas, Plots and Themes.

Idea Factory.

ORIGINS.

"Where do you get your ideas?"

This is one of the most common questions asked of writers. It is also one of the most annoying. Why? Because it is much too general.

"Where did you get the idea for 'Translations in Celadon'?"

"Where did you get the idea for John's gold mine scam?"

"Where did you get the idea for the Viking at the beginning?"

These are specific questions, and so are much easier to answer specifically. Does knowing where other people find ideas help you find some of your own? I believe it does, by demonstrating some of the most profitable places to look.

Of course, you might have an idea for your next book already. If so, stop for a moment and write down the origin of that idea.

It is quite likely that the idea was inspired by one or more of the following;

Something that happened to you. (You went on a holiday and everything went wrong.)

Something that happened to someone you know. (Your friend climbed out of the bath and put her foot through the bathroom floor.)

Something that nearly happened, or that could have happened, to you. (You were stranded with a friend's dog and a taxi driver refused to take the dog. Your friend arrived to take over, but what if she hadn't?)

Something you wish would happen to you, or to someone else. (You wish that play you wrote had made it to performance on a bigger stage than the local town hall.)

A chance comment by someone. (Your child says his friend has a pig at home.)

An overheard conversation. (You hear two boys chatting up a girl, then hear what they say about her after she's gone.)

A news item. (You read that feral cats are bigger than domestic ones.)

Something you saw or heard. (You saw an interesting sunset that looks like the gate to another world.)

A dream. (You dreamed that adults everywhere lost interest in their children.)

An unusual character you saw or met or heard about. (You saw a swagman whose dog was carrying an outsized bone.)

An interesting setting. (You went boating on a tropical river.)

Ideas from sources like these usually arrive spontaneously, and people who are "born writers" often find ideas crowding in from all directions.

Your son comments on the timelessness of a river. Click! You have an idea for a time travel story.

Your daughter acquires a pet rat and conveniently forgets to mention it. Click! You have an idea for an animal story.

Your spouse mentions the fact that the aurealis australis affects radio signals. Click! You have an idea for a UFO story.

You read a snippet about falling birthrates. Click! An idea for a futuristic story.

Someone gives you a gift you cannot use. Click! An idea for a story in which such a gift is used.

You discover an interesting fact about convict transportation. Click! Click! Click! A colonial saga is born.

Ideas are, quite literally, everywhere. In fact some writers have so many that they find it difficult to focus on any one idea long enough to complete the project.

MULTIPLYING AND ALTERNATIVE IDEAS.

There is also the fact that ideas breed. Each time you plot a book or story, you reject several possibilities. If your hero bypasses a hitchhiker on a stormy night, you can still write a story in which a heroine or villain does not pass by. If you decide to make your heroine an architect instead of a lawyer, you still have a lawyer heroine up your sleeve.

Every book has a dozen shadows, the choices you rejected at the time.

You write a story that focuses on the less-intelligent friend of a genius. This friend must strive to keep up.

Next time you might focus on the brighter friend, who feels impatient with his slower companion, or who is uncomfortable with the contrast and tries to tone down his responses in an effort to be "normal".

I repeat, ideas are everywhere. Some are brilliant, some are good. Some are OK. A few are very bad, usually because they belong to someone else. Ideas are like fingerprints. It is fiendishly difficult (as well as morally unsound and sometimes illegal) to hijack (without permission) an idea that belongs to someone else and use it creatively.

FOCUS ON IDEAS.

Ideas can usually be expressed as a simple sentence.

Girl's mother can do magic; her father can't handle it.

Searching for her lost fiancé, woman falls in love with someone else.

Girl turns into a horse in another world.

Frightened wife falls in love with a ghost.

Woman commits crime to be with lover.

Dog is persecuted by bossy cat.

Alien child is brought up by humans.

Notice how these one-sentence summaries focus on the conflicts or central problems inherent in the ideas. It is not enough to say;

Man and woman fall in love.

or - Woman commits crime.

These are not enticing because they are too simple.

Of course, ideas are often expressed in much more than one single sentence, but mostly they can be distilled to one central conflict. And in that central conflict lies the germ of the plot.

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