I recently started work on an outline for a new story that I hope I can squeeze in after my current project. For those of you following along, yes, I’m back to outlining and thinking about new plots. This one began with the spark of an idea for a specific setting and one detail about the two main characters.As I was working on the outline yesterday, it struck me that I couldn’t recall when this idea first hit me. Where had that spark came from? Had I seen something? Read something?
I’m always playing with ideas in my head, and sometimes they start out so innocuous it doesn’t register as anything important until a few days pass and a few dozen “what ifs” run through my mind. Then I start writing it all down, and the idea makes its way into my official story ideas folder.
I guess it’s okay that I don’t know where this one came from or how it started. I know where it’s going. And in the end, it’s the final product that’ll matter.
So where have some of my other ideas come from?
Anything, anywhere. TV, movies, art, news stories, overheard conversations, people watching. The smallest gesture of two people in a crowded restaurant can grow and transform into a full backstory about how these two lovers met. I play with their “story,” asking myself what if this happened? And then this? Oh, how about this? And so on…
Yes, taking me out to dinner can be a challenge.
People are fascinating. You never know what you’ll see when you discreetly watch from a distance at a restaurant, the county fair, the waiting room of the doctor’s office, or even driving down the highway.
Maybe you’ll see a teenager singing to his steering wheel. Does he have dreams of becoming the next American Idol?
Or a couple arguing through tears and shouts, their young child in the backseat chattering away to her doll. Is this a typical family squabble? Or is there something more to it? Maybe they are trying to figure out how to elude the baby’s dangerous biological father who’s just escaped from prison.
I’m sure my conclusions are nowhere near the reality of their lives, but it sure is fun to make up my own ideas…and then throw all kinds of disasters at them.
Sloan Parker
www.sloanparker.com
6 comments:
How true, Sloan! Those what ifs are what make us writers. The bigger the what if, the better the story -- in the right hands. You are good at that!
Thanks, Kayelle! You too. I think my mother worried about my "what ifs" as a child. Or maybe it was all the talking to my imaginary friends.
Boy, i know what you mean. I was watching the guiltiest of pleasures, Say Yes to the Dress, and suddenly was imagining the very gay fashion director having a romance with a customer and i was off.
Now, if i was just as good at creating conflict situations as you are --- : )
Thanks, Tara. Love me some conflict. Don't ask my editor about it, though. I think I get too carried away and scare her.
Don't you just love how your imagination takes off on its own while you're trying to watch TV? Guess that's the life of a writer.
Congrats again on your contract with Loose Id!! I'm thrilled for you.
Oh, new ideas! I love them. And, like you say, sometimes we don't even know where they come from. That's the beauty and mystery of them!
I enjoyed the post!
And best wishes with your newest 'spark'!
Thanks, Carol. I'd much rather have mysterious new ideas than no ideas at all, that's for sure. Good luck to you too!
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