How to find your idea for a story

How to catch an idea

By Dr Charley Barnes

To begin with, you’ll need a huge butterfly net…

If only it were that easy to find an idea for a plot! Actually, sometimes it can be. There's a lot of discussion around where writers get their ideas from when, for a lot of us, the world around us gives us everything we need to get a story going and maybe even create ideas for writer's notebook. 

That doesn’t mean we’re literally looking under rocks and toadstools to create our favourite characters for children’s fiction. Nor are we all smoking goodness-only-knows-what to reach a higher landscape of creative brilliance (despite what the old Romantics might have you believe). What many of us are doing, though, is keeping a keen eye out for the things that make us stop and pause, in the hope that if we can write something half as good as the oddities in the world around us, we’ll find ourselves with a decent story. 

If you’re stuck for a starting point ever, the easiest way to get ideas going is to sit on a park bench (all the while making sure you’re a safe distance from anyone else on the bench) and take a good hard look around. 

When you catch the butterfly of an idea, write it down quickly in your notebook. You can always refine it later.'

 

If you practice writing or drawing every day in your notebook, even if you don’t have any ideas. By making a habit of working on something in your notebook will make it easier to come up with fresh ideas.

While doing this very same thing at a train station – years ago now, but early in the day – I saw a woman with a large handbag. She lifted it on to the seat alongside her and pulled out a bowl and one of those miniature boxes of cereal, the kind you typically find in multi-packs or in hotel breakfast bars. Odd, I remember thinking, although it made sense for the time of day. What I couldn’t make sense of, though, was how, after emptying the cereal into the bowl, she then pulled out a small carton of apple juice from her bag as well… You can see where this is going, reader, can’t you?

I’m not saying there’s a whole story there but if that woman isn’t a character worthy of at least a cameo in a short work of fiction, then I don’t know who is!

Although, that hardly compares to the time I went out for dinner with my sister, only to discover the couple at the table next to us were breaking up over their evening meal.

Creative ideas for writer's block

Ideas can be easily tracked down, too, by looking through the headlines of any newspaper on any day of the week – especially at the moment (science-fiction writers, eat your hearts out). It’s an adage that truth is stranger than fiction and, while it might sound cliché on the surface, in reality it’s quite true. Borrowing from the things around you doesn’t mean you lack originality but rather you have authenticity! At least you know the tales you’re spinning are true, and therefore believable for a reader. If you’re feeling especially adventurous, then maybe you’ll mix two headlines together for a genre-blend. 

The only time you need to swing yourself back to the drawing board is when you’re writing 80,000 word laments about watching paint dry. Because you can likely guess what readers will think of that… 

...And like Winston Churchill coined..

"No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a search but at the same time a steady eye."

And here's the wonderful author of this week’s post

Dr Charley Barnes

Worcestershire Poet Laureate 2019-2020

"I'm a poet, author and academic based in Worcestershire, UK, and I do love a good sit-down conversation about writing. At present, I'm a lecturer in Creative Writing and English Literature and I work at a number of institutions around the West Midlands, most recently University of Worcester and Newman University. When I'm not teaching I'm likely writing - Charley Barnes for poetry and C.S. Barnes for fiction - or I'm editing, either at the Dear Reader poetry journal or as the Personal Essays and Creative Non-Fiction Editor at Mookychick. I've devoted my career to writing and I've loved every second so far! It makes me sincerely happy to pass on a few pearls of wisdom that I've picked up along the way."

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Writing enthusiast Aidan Colyer has some more great tips

Now if you want to expand on an idea that you have there are several ways to do that. You can brainstorm those ideas I use this software if I am on a computer Main Page - FreeMind.

 It is a basic brainstorming tool but allows you to take bigger ideas and break them down into smaller ideas that can be used to form chapters.

Having an idea of how much you are going to write is a good way of doing it too. Personally I start with 80,000 words and 40 chapters (which are 2000 words). While I might not have that as an exact amount at the end it is a good jumping off point. I then take my idea or concept and build a character (see above for the role playing character creation I sometimes use). Now you know where you want to start and you know where you are going to end. That is chapters 1 and 40 done. Now you need to work out the steps needed to get from point A in chapter one to point B in chapter 40. What you need is a basic plot structure. Again the internet is your friend. Google plot structures and have a look around. When you have one you like go back to your chapters and write what has to happen in each one. You wont be able to do this for all chapters but for the first 5 or so try and get a two sentence summary written. Then start writing. As you write each chapter you will get more ideas. Write these down. After about 5 chapters you will have a good idea of plots and sub plots that are emerging. Pick these out and do a bit of brainstorming then carry on. By splitting the writing into 40 chapters of 2000 words you give yourself smaller more manageable targets. You can also skip a chapter if you are struggling with a scene as you know where the next chapter should go. 2000 words is also doable in one evening so you get the feeling of accomplishment. Potentially you could get the book written in 40 evenings. Doesn't seem that hard now!

And Denis Martindale has some more tips up his sleeve

I started off writing by creating a basic love song and developing from there into more and sometimes into the realm of poetry, as well as commenting in the local newspapers and magazines. Further to these, I ventured into the Radio station programmes I liked on the Gospel Radio station Trans World Radio. After these initial steps, I began writing hymns and when I got a calligraphy pen, I started writing quotations. Later on, I was getting poems published by UK and USA publishers. Furthermore, I was introduced to the use of computers and the Internet, then word processing and desktop publishing, plus using emails to send my poems off to publishers and national newspapers. Eventually, I began to learn more about web design and uploading poetry to the Internet sites I was working on, plus others like Poetry.com – Share your Poem.