The Birth of a Story Idea...or a Two-Headed Dragon

-
Victoria in one of her creative moments.
If you write, someone has probably asked you this question:

"Where do you get your ideas from?"

The number of possible answers to this question probably exceeds the number of people writing stories. Ideas develop from several common sources, but how they transfer into a story idea, for me at least, is almost impossible to map.

Take this recent conversation I had with my granddaughter as an example:

Victoria:  Did you know lizards can lose their tails?
Me: I think I knew it, but then it might be because you've been talking about it.
Victoria: I saw a video of a dog chasing a lizard. He tried to bite its tail, and the lizard dropped its tail and ran away.  (She giggled) The tail was wriggling.
Me: Chickens do that.
Victoria: Huh?
Me:  When you chop off a chicken's head, its body will keep running around. That's why they say "running around like a chicken with its head chopped off."
Victoria: The dog didn't chase the lizard because it was barking at the tail.
Me: That's its protection mechanism. God made it able to drop its tail and get away while the tail wriggles and distracts the predator.
Victoria:  The lizard grows back its tail. Wouldn't it be cool if we could do that like lizards or starfish or an octopus?
Me: Yeah, that would be neat.
Victoria: One thing you can't grow back though is a head. If they cut off the head, you're dead.
Me: Yep.
Victoria: Unless you're a dragon in a movie and you cut off the head and two grow back. Then you cut off those heads and three grow back, then four, then five.  What if it grew a thousand heads back?
Me:  (laughing) That would be crazy.
Victoria:  (sitting straight up with her arms by her side and neck stretched upward) It wouldn't be able to move if it had a thousand heads. All the necks would get in the way.

Do you see the strange paths this conversation took? That's how a story idea happens. You start with something and then your mind goes off on slightly related tangents that lead to more tangents and more until you have something completely different...like a dragon with 1000 heads.

Next question?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Skin Tone: Describing Your Characters

-
Image
When you write about character's of different races, how do you describe their skin tone? If you've never thought about this, then consider this question: How do the authors you read described persons of color? A few months ago, I attended a webinar about writing diverse characters. The guest was Eliana West of Writers for Diversity . The information she shared felt fresh and valuable, especially related to describing a character's skin tone. I get really tired of seeing African-descended characters described in terms of the goods that drove, and still drive the slave trade--coffee, chocolate, brown sugar. There's some weird psychosocial baggage attached to that.    -- N. K. Jemisin As this quote from author, N. K . Jemisin , indicates, historically, writers have described people of color using food-related descriptors. Many people of color find this offensive. This surprised me, at first, but she has a point, especially when you view it through the quote above. My fir
Read more

Character Development: Using the Johari Window

-
Image
In my last post, Character Development: the Johari Window , I introduced the Johari Window as a tool for developing your characters. It's important that your character not know everything about their situation. These unknowns can lead to an intriguing story and create possibilities for conflict within the story. How do you use the Johari Window? In this post, I thought I'd provide a simple example of the Johari Window with a character most people know:  Harry Potter. Below, I have filled out the Johari Window as it might appear within the first few pages of book 1, Harry Potter and The Sorceror's Stone . The Johari Window based on Harry Potter and The Sorceror's Stone Three of the quadrants in this window reveal what Harry doesn't know about who he truly is and what happened to his parents. I could add a lot to the quadrants representing what he doesn't know, but I hope this gives you an idea on how a Johari Window might be used. What do you d
Read more

Should Christians Watch The Hunger Games?

-
The question stunned me.  I had never looked at The Hunger Games as a threat to our society, so the email asking why I, as a Christian, could promote a movie/book where children kill children caught me off guard.  My friend admitted, she had not read the books or seen the movie, so her opinion was based on plot information found online, but all I could think is that's not really what The Hunger Games is about.  It does not glorify children killing children.  Sure, there is the arena - which is a large wilderness - where twenty-four children are launched into the game of kill or be killed, but that's only looking at this story from the surface. Even so, I realized my friend gave me a rare opportunity. Rather than blast me, she told me her concerns and asked if I could explain why many Christians support and rave about this story.  I thanked her and asked for a few days to gather my thoughts.  I even re-read the first book in the series with her concern foremost in my mind. 
Read more