Podcast Notes:
Take each of your ideas, and look for which one has the most built-in or clearest CONFLICT
SIMPLE conflict is always the best. Convoluted is implausible
Questions with ideas: what could go wrong? How could this thing go south?
Dig deeper than just the low-hanging fruit – try to uncover something unexpected and not obvious
Sit down with blank document and write three categories: PLOT – SETTING – CHARACTER…then fill in each and identify holes
Prompt:
Using last week’s five story ideas (or five new ones):
• Take two of them and combine them into one story.
• Take one and change the genre underneath it.
• Take one and change the ages and genders of everybody you had in mind for it
• Take the last one and have a character make the opposite choice.
Exercise:
1. A college student is inducted into a fraternity/sorority, and through their hazing routine, they convert him into a wizard and induct him into their order.
2. Hard science fiction book about the first lunar colony
3. Story of couple in their 80s who still walk every day, the story of their lives and death
4. A sun-obsessed scientist follows through with his plan to ENTER our star, which he’s discovered are gateways.
5. A group of people that fight the dark corners of the internet using the internet like TRON.
COMBINE #1 and #4: A college student is abducted by a sun-obsessed scientist to travel into the sun, which is a gateway to other parts of the galaxy
GENRE SWITCH #2: A fantasy book about the first colony in some magical distant land
AGE/GENDER SWITCH #3: Story of a pair of children who walk every day, dreaming about their future together and the adventures they’ll go on
OPPOSITE CHOICE #5: A cop that joins a group of thieves to fight the authorities on the internet using VR like in TRON