Story ideas are a dime a dozen, but story ideas that actually get written, in my experience, are one in a hundred. Now, logically you’d think that means a usable story idea costs a bit more than eight dollars, but imagery has to break down somewhere. If you could see my hard drive, you’d  know I’ve got a fair few stillborn short stories, lasting all of a few pages, and at least as many unused outlines and brainstorming sessions. Turns out that just because I get excited about an idea doesn’t mean it has enough substance to become a short story, let alone a novel. To that last, a recent aborted attempt (20k words) at a new story can testify. Though I do intend to return to that story’s idea eventually, it just isn’t ready to be written yet.

How, then, do we take the seeds of stories and grow them strong enough to be worth writing?

#1 Write It Down

First and most importantly, write down your idea. Let it stir around for a little bit, when you first think of it, if you have the time to think. Make sure it’s not just a vagary, that you have something worth remembering. Once you’ve mulled over it a bit, however, once you’ve found some interesting parts to the idea and come up with a development or three, go and write it down. Be clear, and be comprehensive: put the whole idea down. Treat it like a bit of brainstorming, too- I find that when I write these things down I get new ideas in the process. Sometimes, too, I find contradictions or issues. At this stage, though, rather than being fatal, contradictions are usually fodder for development, places to ask, ‘So how do I make these two elements not actually contradictory?’

Furthermore, once you’ve written it down, save that note. Collect these notes- alongside bits of setting, odd historical information, observations on other’s work, and turns of phrase that you really like- and, occasionally, review them. We’ll come back to this part later.

#2 Let It Stew

Once the idea is there, keep it around. Look at it from different angles, consider potential modifications and developments, fit in other elements (we’ll get into this process a bit later). You don’t need to focus on it; indeed, that may be counterproductive, at this stage. Instead, just go about your life, taking some time every once in a while- while driving or cleaning or showering or something else where you’ve got the time- to turn it over in your head.

#3 Mix ‘n’ Match

Remember how I said to write down all those different things? Well, one way to give an idea enough substance to make a story from it is to combine it with other ideas. Combine a character idea here with a setting there and a plot there. Throw all sorts of ideas into the soup, mix them together, let them change and shape each other, and see if something good comes out.

#4 Read

When I have a story idea that I think is a likely prospect (which happens much more often than the story idea getting written), what I read will play a part in how I develop it. This can take two primary paths: reading for inspiration and incorporating disparate elements. In the first, I will sometimes find stories which share a some element of plot, character, setting, theme, or genre with my story idea. In reading these stories, I look for the elements which appeal to me, which make me want to write, while also working out how they’ll change from their incarnation in the story I’m reading when I adapt them to the story I’ll write.

In the second, instead of reading a book for its similarity, I instead take a book I’m reading regardless and look at some particular element- a character, a plot structure, a twist in the setting, its method of handling the theme- and ask myself what about it I like, what I dislike. Then I see how these elements, either reversed or played straight, can work into the story idea. Sometimes they won’t. Sometimes what I like in another author isn’t something I want to do myself. Certainly, as much as I admire Tolkien, my current mindset-worldview does not permit certain cosmological ambiguities his stories sometimes employ (i.e. the distance of Eru Iluvatar from the thought processes of the characters). Yet by working to understand what is beautiful in another and by applying it to my own work, I can obtain great benefit and joy.

#5 Challenge Yourself

With short stories particularly, I sometimes undertake a writing project in part because it stretches my skills.  For instance, I know that over the process of writing my novels (one published currently) I’ve developed a certain level of reliance on thought-dialogue, direct communications of the POV¹ character’s internal monologue. So, when I wrote A Wind from the West,¹ I deliberately chose to restrict my use of thought dialogue to one instance per POV character, with the same two words in each case. Similarly, in writing my current project, I decided that since many of my stories dealt with somebody trying to figure out what was right, I’d take a different tack this time. So I chose a story-direction which led to a character knowing what was right but struggling with his willingness to do it. In anticipating a project, it can be helpful to find an element of your writing that you want to improve, and then ask how this story can practice that area of skill.

#6 Pull on a Thread

When I have a story idea, developing it often takes the form of postulating a through line based on what I have, then following that through-line forward to see where it takes me. Plot, character, theme, and setting can all be fruitful areas for this endeavor, as we’ll shortly see.

A. Plot

With plot, ask yourself: how can it go wrong? If it goes right, then what? How much story does the plot you already have support? If I plan a pirate story out, a general idea of ‘piracy, leading to a semi-legitimate naval action’ suffices for the beginning, but the joy of turning a premise into a story is in the details. What happens which turns the pirates from theft to something more like privateering? Are there unique challenges to either one? Of course, these questions bleed quickly over into setting and character and theme. As you’ll discover soon enough, that’s standard. Questions of ‘how’ become ‘why’, because in the human psyche those two flow through each other.

Another set of questions regard sub-plots. If I have that pirate story, I can also have the pirate’s personal story, whether he’s the captain or a sailor, and how it interweaves with the piracy plot. Usually the two should mesh, either because progressing one plot increases the difficulty of the other’s progress or because the solution to one plot brings a solution to the other (often a mixture of both). I can consider the other side of the plot, the pursuers, or I can set up an antagonist whose schemes the pirates unintentionally get in the midst of, causing an unforeseen conflict.

Further, remember how I mentioned combining ideas? Plot ideas can lead to character ideas and vice versa, but often combining a character idea with an independently conceived plot idea is a fruitful process, when the wrinkles are worked out with all their complexity of interaction. From plot can spring character, at this stage, so that by deciding the direction we want the story to take, we find what type of man is required to helm as protagonist.

B. Character

Characters, for me, are often the driving force of the story. Naturally, then, if I desire a certain type of character, I can generate from that character a variety of other elements. Plot is the foremost. A character with a certain moral code and a certain set of motives will need a plot fitted to show and develop that code and those motives, to challenge and possible change them. Thus, in my current project one character’s desire for vengeance drives him down the path of the story towards the rest of the plot, and the rest of the plot is calibrated to deal with his desire for vengeance, among other character elements.

Further, the presence of one character can call for the creation of others. A protagonist may need an antagonist, and an antagonist always needs a protagonist.³ A secondary character or even a deuteragonist may be required to develop the main character.

The plot and theme will often develop out of the character’s nature. What he desires dictates where he goes, what obstacles you set before him, what traps he falls into. Who he is will drive the moral and theological impetus of the story in a particular direction.

C. Theme

Developing a story out of theme is a risky business, to be sure. It can easily become preachiness or unreality. When care it taken, however, this can be a powerful way to develop a story idea into something usable. Ask, ‘What element of the moral or theological am I interrogating?’ Having determined this, undertake the interrogation in earnest. Find the hardest questions; find at least the beginning of answers. Consider the human element, how people will respond to these questions, how their motives and prejudices will bias them.

D. Setting

Setting is a fun one. Sometimes a story comes with a built-in setting. A Wind From The West, for instance, was conceived as a Western from the start, and part of the premise of Why Ought I To Die? was the underground island. Other times, while perhaps a few elements are pre-set in the first idea (like swords and a mountain pass in my current project), the rest is vague. Developing the setting, whatever the circumstance, is a powerful tool to find new plot and develop characters.

To this end, ask questions about how the whole affair works. What is the character’s place in society? How does he relate to the government? What’s the terrain he works with- sea, mountains, plains, caverns, etc.? What’s going on in the wider world, and how does it affect him? Religion, politics, geography, industry, economics, culture, language, cosmetics, trade, technology, all of these can bring new problems and new possibilities for the story to use.

E. Challenges?

If I’ve decided I want to challenge myself in some area, the next step is to see how it works with the story. Sometimes a particular challenge just doesn’t work right with a particularly story idea, admittedly, but that’s what this step is all about figuring out. If I want to write a story with a non-linear narrative or an unconventional plot structure or some fancy array of literary foils, I’m imposing a requirement on the rest of the story. As I develop the idea, I can shape it according to the mold given by the challenge. What does it mean for the story if I’m only allowed to use each POV once? What if I want to tell it in first person, single POV?

#7 It’s a Dud, So What?

Sometimes the story idea really is just a dud. Oh, I’ll keep it around to be safe, but I know that if it comes back, it’ll be in a near unrecognizable form. (My first few stories are basically this, even if the mass dinosaur combat was theoretically cool). Don’t try to write a story that you can’t see a way forward for, as a rule. Writing a story that you don’t want to write just because you don’t want to waste the idea or believe it has to get worthwhile at some point…. That’s just a path to bad writing and misery.⁴ So instead, write it down, set it aside, and look for something better. The Pot of Story⁵ is wide and deep. You will find another, better story if you just keep looking (here I speak from experience).

God bless.

Footnotes

1 – Also published as Come, Drink of This Cup

2 – Point of View. Articles on this topic are here and here.

3 – The asymmetry is because unlike an antagonist, the protagonist must be personal.

4 – While some periods of pain are an expected and necessary, even beneficial, part of writing, the whole affair should be one you desire and enjoy as a rule.

5 – A reference to Tolkien’s On Fairy Stories.