Mastering Story Ideas

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
                                                                    ― Linus Pauling

Working writers do their jobs almost every day. They don’t wait for inspiration. They show up and put words on paper. They do hit dry spells when the concept for the next book in a series isn’t good enough or the words come slowly. They may also get derailed by life or lose confidence in their gift. I’ve certainly know writers who have run out of gigs or have gotten caught in mind-numbing collaborations or have hit joyless stretches where none of the work seems to add up to much.  

I don’t remember ever meeting a working writer who said he or she ran out of ideas. Put words on paper daily for a few months, and the knack for seeing ideas in real life tends to become a habit.

Meet someone new, see the quirk, and wonder if they point toward a character you’d like to know. Read an article and recognize the bit that makes it memorable. Hear a scientific fact or get surprised by something you never knew about a family member or a historical figure or a celebrity, and it will get stuck in your head sparking questions. Watch a TV show that fails because it never answers the story question you had or goes deeply enough into its subject and wonder how you might do better.

There are tips on collecting ideas.

• Write them down as soon as possible.
• Write them down in full sentences.
• Make sure they are easily accessible, not just scribbled down and added to a box.
• Sort them so they fit how you write. For instance, do they seem to belong to a specific genre? Would they be interesting to a particular audience? Do you have an ongoing story that feels like it needs a character like that one?
  

Some ideas may be prompts. They may capture you and reveal themselves through research. Knowing more may make them whole. Or they may turn out to rhyme with the idea that’s hiding in your brain. It’s okay to just collect the prompts, but it’s better to let them take you where they are leading you right away, if you can.

Some ideas have value, but may not be for you. But which ones? I’ve regretted putting an idea aside because I didn’t feel qualified or knew someone “obviously” better to write it. The way I know now is by playing with the idea. Usually writing a page does the job. An essay or a scene or a character interview takes less than an hour. Looking at it a month later usually makes its dismissal acceptable, with no regrets. But sometimes, it holds on firmly, justifying its way into my writing.

Some ideas may need to sit. This is common. The more an idea keeps reminding you of itself, the more it is likely to give you reasons (though they may not be articulated). Some of the best ideas, once captured, ripen with time. They tell you when you have enough experience to dedicate work hours to them.

See if you can figure out why the idea caught your attention. This often doesn’t work. It never works when the idea isn’t ripe. But, as you grow as a writer and know about the themes you care about and characters you like to explore, an idea (once it’s expressed in a full sentence) may tell you why you care about it. And that can shorten the process of incorporating it into a story.

Have you ever tried to interest a writer in an idea for a story? Or seen someone do it? Or had someone, when you tell them you write, try to give you an idea (or offer to split the profits)? Here’s what happens.

The idea is rejected. Almost always. Sometimes rudely. Sometimes politely. Bad ideas, cliches, malformed bits without context, and “terrific” dreams are swatted away for obvious reasons. Wonderful ideas that are fully expressed will probably be turned down, too. If you’ve ever had a writer suggest you write it yourself, it’s probably worth considering.

So, there are a lot of reason for saying “no.” The unspoken reason is that a working writer has a surplus of ideas. Some are bad. Some are so-so and could be good. Some are good and could be better. All want to claim time and effort. There isn’t much reason for a writer to take up your idea unless he or she wants to collaborate with you because your skills, ideas, perspectives, and experiences are complementary. The two of you working together promises to be better than the sum of the team’s parts.

Mastery of ideas comes from becoming a working writer. It is maintained by continuing to write regularly. You can become more efficient by collecting and classifying and sorting and storing ideas less wastefully, but, just as happiness is a side product to how you live, having a lot of ideas is a side product to your commitment to writing.

Developing concepts for stories takes more. It might come from luck, but those pursuing mastery don’t depend on chance. Unlike ideas concepts t don’t come from dedication. They come from deliberate practices (or luck), so next week will be about mastering those practices.  

 

Mastering the Vital Elements of Writing - Why it matters

Writers get stuck. Writers are beset by doubts. Writers feel like imposters. Or…

Writers always have ways around the obstacles they hit. Writers have confidence. Writers own their skills, talents, and accomplishments.

One of the greatest gifts writers can give themselves is mastering the essential aspects of writing. The best writers have the tools to create great dialogue or ways to test a story concept or examples at hand that demonstrate ways to solve story problems. To be sure, bad habits (dithering, looping, procrastinating, and more) can undercut the most capable and proficient writers. They need to be guarded against (as do distractions, addictions, and inattention to health). But becoming a master writer is a powerful way to avoid getting stuck or lost in doubts or losing your earned identity as a real writer.

Consider mastery in golf as an example. Like writing, it’s more about the course and you than about any opponents. There’s a poetry to the sport that players own. Choosing the right club. Testing the wind. Reading the lie. Managing pressure and disappointment and doubt.

But there also is a discipline of regular tasks. Driving off the tee. Chipping. Putting. A good golfer defaults to the muscle memory of thousands of strokes to hit the ball just right over and over again. He or she masters dozens of simple jobs by observing, listening, analyzing, testing, and practicing.

Writing is a lot more complex, with more jobs that need to be mastered. Often, what looked like one task turns out to be several. The choices writers make depend on the course — the genre, the audience, where they are in the story, and which way the wind is blowing. Writers also have to face pressure and disappointment and doubts.

Golfers and writers can have good days thanks to luck, but regular success, and much of the confidence and joy that makes engagement worthwhile, is built on a foundation of mastery. Moving easily into writing dialogue or editing for language or developing ideas that resonate — being able to take on jobs like these knowing you can do them can change your frame of mind as a writer.

No one masters everything. Which is probably a good thing. If a golfer hit a hole-in-one every time, it would get boring. (And the golf course would be redesigned.) Similarly mastery in writing is never complete or a deep as it could be. Which is good because otherwise it would get boring. But, more importantly, room for growth does not mean mastery is not achievable. Philip K. Dick never really mastered language, but his insights, odd logic, and clever plotting made him a leading SF writer. Charles Dickens easily slipped into sentimentality and cheap characterizations, but his amazing honesty and pacing turned his works into classics. No writer is perfect. But the ones you return to again and again have become experts with enough of the vital tools of writing to be considered masters.

You can, too.

It means being patient with yourself. It means studying the work of others (dissecting, questioning, exploring, expressing what you learned in full sentences, testing the concepts). It means deliberately writing work that will never be published, just to practice a technique until if comes naturally. It means noticing your own responses to writing and being curious about them. It means attending to the responses of peers and beta readers with humility, judgment, and discernment.

It also means knowing what jobs need to be mastered and having starting points for each. You can just jump in and learn from the writing of others, and, with processes that work for you, amplify your strengths or improve where you are weak. That’s fine. But, for those who may need a little guidance, I’ll begin a series on mastery here in this blog. It will be incomplete and, at times, not right for you. Inevitably, I’ll have times when I do a poor job because I have my own weaknesses and I have strengths I don’t understand.

I hope some of what I post is valuable anyway.

My current list of topics:

• Story concepts
• Scenes
• Characters
• Descriptions and settings
• Dialogue
• Language
• Plot
• Storytelling
• Audience
  

I’ll strive to include basic concepts, clearly stated. I’ll mention benefits (to help with motivation). There will be examples and exercises.

Reading the blog posts won’t make you a master. Neither will doing an exercise each week. It’s also likely that you’ll have clearer ideas and a better approach on some subjects. (That’s good.) Mostly, what is involved in achieving mastery is interest, honest self-assessment, and dedication. I can provide a map. I can’t carry you along the journey. Even if I could, it wouldn’t be much fun for either of us.

The Dignity of Stories - Ten rules to avoid trivialization

I love stories that dig deeply into issues of individual experience and social importance. So many stories that I reread - To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn, The Grapes of Wrath, Oliver Twist, and more - grapple with what makes us human and what makes up communities. They both respect and personalize large issues.

On the other hand, I’m frustrated by stories that glue relevance to mundane stories to make them seem bigger, toss in diverse characters without making them distinct, or use traumas as unexplored plot points or unexamined explanations for why antagonists behave badly. The things that matter to who we are and the challenges that most gravely threaten our culture should not be trivialized.

That’s the moral issue, which some may disagree with. Especially those who are creating entertainments with no pretensions of seriousness. But, even if you write to provide amusement and escape (which is worthy), this is worth a closer look for two reasons:

First, including important issues can cause harm unintentionally. I’ll take a chance here by using blackface as an  example. (And I apologize if I offend anyone. If I unintentionally cause harm.) The minstrel show was the most popular style of entertainment in the late 1800s in the US, and this genre persisted into the 20th century. It was cruel, mocking, and harmful. Often, the adoption of blackface was intentional (DW Griffith) cruel and inexcusable. But I wonder how much it might have been the result of a lack of reflection (Fred Astaire). When could/should people have know better?

It isn’t always clear. When Buster Keaton brought his version of blackface into his short film, Neighbors, I suspect he was thoughtful and intended it as a critique. His character had a left side black and right side white, and he showed police attack him when he showed the black side and leave him alone when he showed the right side. Did he prick consciences or exploit race? From the distance of 100 years, it’s hard to make a judgement. Star Trek famously used a similar device in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield to explicitly attack racism. Was that episode, in itself, racist? Or justified?

Second, including something big creates opportunities for better storytelling. Matters of importance reveal character. Good characters reveal new dimensions in big issues that too often are presented with cliches instead of insights. Not giving race, sexism, bullying, abuse, trauma, bigotry, and a host of other issues that separate us from others and ourselves their full due, diminishes stories by eliminating fresh understandings and authentic, specific imagery.

Note 1: Even honest, careful attempts at dealing with deep issues can be unsuccessful. This can be because of a lack of skill or insight, or it can be because sensitive issues can been seen by different audiences in different ways. Birth of a Nation, once consider essential cinema, is horrendous. Gone with the Wind is still beloved, but it makes me (and others) squirm. Othello sits on the knife edge, but I think we’re passed the time where we’ll see the protagonist played by a white person.  

Note 2: Humor complicates this. It can elevate the trivial to something more profound because the protagonists usually are obsessed and become their own worst enemies. It can also slip past our defenses to smuggle in insights (Slaughterhouse Five).

So, both in terms of responsibility and in terms of being a better storyteller, it is good to avoid trivialization. But how? Here’s an incomplete list of suggestions:

    1.    Challenge your assumptions. This obviously goes for forays into cultures, ethnicities, and sexual orientations that are not your own. But it also applies to the familiar that is too familiar. It’s notable that both Norman Mailer and John Updike won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
    2.    Punch up. It’s usually a bad idea to mock or villainize those who have less privilege than you do. Even peers may be too vulnerable. Those with a lot of privilege fall into the category of those who can defend themselves and are less likely to be unjustly hurt. As Finley Dunne said, “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” But be wary of cliche villains. Make them individual. And know they are the heroes of their own stories.
    3.    Never discount suffering and sacrifice. For example, childhood abuse pops up as a reason for stoic heroes and cruel villains, but such experiences (shared by many readers/audience members) are complicated and don’t result in one-note character traits. They are pervasive and dealt with by various strategies and adaptations. They don’t need to take over the story, but they can’t just provide simple explanations.
    4.    Courage should be honored. We are all wounded. It defeats some. If your character has been deeply traumatized and hangs on to still be functional and positive (or even rises to become more empathetic and caring), that should show up and be celebrated.
    5.    Dig deep. You do not need to become the world expert on every issue, hardship, and heartache. But it’s good to set as a goal to research long enough to discover something unexpected and important.
    6.    Collect anecdotes. Find individual reflections, those statements from people who know that are embedded in real-world contexts. If you really know three by heart, you have guides to test your choices.
    7.    Understand and appreciate the barriers and obstacles. People struggle to be included or to make themselves whole face challenges. Some of these are cultural. Some are difficult because of the characteristics (shyness, intelligence, temperament) of the individual. All need to be recognized and explored in terms of specifics, not generalities.
    8.    Moments matter. Reflect on your own responses to important life challenges. What overwhelmed you as a teen might not challenge you today. Bringing your opinions and principles back to a time decades ago could be wrenching. Most importantly, think in terms of sequence. The order and pace of events and understandings that marked you probably matter. As an exercise to engage with this idea, it might be good to write a page about a time you were embarrassed or betrayed.
    9.    Admit limitations. If you have a deep understanding of something that should not be trivialized, you can present it through the eyes of an experienced character. If you don’t, consider presenting social and psychological issues through the eyes of someone who is naive. And make the limitations of the character obvious. This helps to alert the reader and prevent over-claiming expertise.
    10.    Truth test. When in doubt, check it out. I’m not a big fan of sensitivity reads. I worry that individuals tasked with representing their demographics prioritize being offended over entering stories. Does anything provocative survive such a test? But I do believe in showing work to people who have different, relevant experiences and seriously considering their comments. In my opinion, this may be best if the people you show the work to are those you know and trust. People who want you to succeed instead of wanting you to stop.

Daring to include what is sensitive, vulnerable to criticism, and larger than yourself is essential to good work (and good writing), so I hope this post does not discourage or dissuade anyone from taking on anything your muse suggests. What I hope is that I’ve provided some ways to check or repair stories that don’t give issues the dignity they deserve.

Finding Themes You Can Be Passionate About

What do you really want to write? What do you want to dedicate a year of your life to exploring, understanding, and sharing? Even though you may have a focus on entertaining (or think you could write anything), commitment shows through for readers and passion will keep you going through all the rewrites and disappointments.

So what do you want to write? What story would you stand in line for and shell out twenty or thirty dollars to experience (in a film or a book)?

If it is truly your story, heavily based on personal experience and seasoned through years of reflection, meditation, and (possibly) therapy, you probably know what you should be writing. Dickens may never have gotten over his stint in a work house, and that comes across in his realistic novels, like Oliver Twist, that so often include facing poverty. I’d argue the truth of The Lord of the Rings emerged from Tolkein’s participation in the Battle of the Somme in WWI.

But your personal story may not be so specific or tied to a singular trauma. And, even if you have awareness of what has shaped you, finding the stories and their themes might be a challenge. So try this:

0 Start by clearing your head of what’s popular or commercial. Don’t write with a paycheck in mind. Also, beware of writing someone else’s trauma — no matter how affecting — if there is no real personal connection. It is alarmingly easy to write someone else’s story to avoid writing your own.

1 List at least 20 stories you find yourself referencing or returning to. Don’t create a “best” list. This is for you, not posterity. Maybe think about a desert island list, where these would be the only stories available to you for the rest of your life.

2 Strike out those stories that are not helpful because you are not in love with the tales as much as what comes with them. The songs in a musical, the spectacle in SF or fantasy, the laughs in a comedy, the gore in a horror movie, the love scenes in a romance. All of these may bring you back over and over again, but the job now is to find the themes that touch you deeply.

Note: I am not implying that you can’t have a great theme in a musical (West Side Story), a fantasy (most of Henson’s Storyteller shows), a comedy (Some Like It Hot) or a horror story (Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death). Every genre has the potential to be meaningful and touch us deeply. But style and charm can hide a multitude of sins. I love musicals, but I can count those I’ve seen with strong endings on one hand. (Weak endings are a strong indicator something is missing.)

3 Put question marks next to those that may be too far from your own experience or may lure you in with language or wit. The former may distract or take too much mining to find the shared human experience (for me, stories of the Holocaust and slavery) or attract because of novelty. The latter may dazzle (for me, the monologues of Sorkin, Mamet, and Tennessee Williams). Save these for a closer look after you have a better idea of what your stories are. Then poke at them for answers.

4 A Explore the remaining (10 or fewer?) separately by free-writing about each for at least ten minutes. (You probably don’t want to do all of them in one sitting. Once you have let yourself respond without editing, mark the strong verbs, virtues, and vices you’ve written down.

4 B You may just want to explore characters from the stories. Those who provoke the strongest emotions.

5 For each story, in one or two sentences, write what happens in 1-3 memorable scenes for each.

6 For each story, in one or two sentences, write why the story matters to you. You may want to express this by stating the theme of the story, but only if that’s something that would be helpful to you. This is not an academic paper.

7 Look at what you’ve written in 4, 5, and 6, and see if anything is common. Do you see the same terms, challenges, concerns, and fascinations coming up repeatedly? Chances are, you’ve found what draws you to these stories and makes them important to you. (If there is no pattern, that’s fine. Humans are complex. Just force rank terms or ideas that resonate with you.)

8 Use what you’ve learned to see if you discover anything about the stories you’ve written. Chances are, you’ll see some that were great choices for you that you can make better. You’ll also see some that, though workmanlike, probably weren’t your best choices. (It’s good to have both.)

9 Dedicate yourself to making the ones that you’re passionate about as good as they can be. These belong in your portfolio.

Follow up work:

10 Forget what you’ve learned when you are writing first drafts. Don’t try to impose your themes (which may change with time) on unformed stories. Instead, you might use them on completed drafts to determine whether a) a revision is merited and b) the full value of the theme has been explored.

11 Look at the flashy stuff you struck out in step 2. Maybe you should be mastering these genres to add something extra to your meaningful works.

12 Once you have enough of your own stories that reflect what you are meant to write, you can go back to the stories with the question marks and see if they connect with you in a way you didn’t recognize earlier.

The point of all of this is to make good choices. Writers who have mastered their craft can competently respond to prompts that are provided by life. Real life anecdotes, genres that promise opportunities, requests to collaborate, and family folklore suggest stories that can be written well, will please others, may pay bills, and/or promise a little fun. I can’t argue against these, especially the paying bills one. But it would be good to become aware of the kinds of stories you were meant to tell and that are sure to make the best use of the gifts you have.