Thank you for checking out the mini fiction writing workshop. In this series I share small, actionable tips for writing fiction. Whether you're a seasoned or developing writer, hopefully you will find some useful information.
This workshop session is about deciding what to write. Maybe you have a few ideas but don't know which ones have merit as stories. Or you sometimes have ideas, but you want a steadier flow of story ideas to choose from. Or perhaps you have story ideas all the time but you're not sure what to do with them.
Let's explore this!
Capturing those fireflies
Story ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere — including from dreams, memories, imagination, overheard conversations, and sudden inspiration that seems to come from nowhere when you're reading a book or watching a movie.
What you do with them is what matters. Consider these statistics:
Any idea you don't write down right away is 75% less likely to be crafted into a story than one you do write down.
62% of ideas that come to you while you are working out or watching TV have the potential of becoming publishable stories.
Two-thirds of the best sellers on the market started from a story idea written on a napkin.
Okay, I just made those up. The point is that ideas are everywhere. Tune your eyes and ears to them, and write them down when they come to you. Otherwise, you won't remember them later. Or if you do, they will have lost the magic they had when they first came to you. You must capture the ideas as they materialize.
Let's talk about some sources of inspiration.
Grabbing overheard conversations
Just think about the potential for storylines that might emerge from an overhead conversation in a coffee shop.
Man: He wouldn't take it. (Shakes his head sadly.)
Woman: You did offer a bribe, right?
Man: Yes. Anything he wanted. No deal.
Now, it may turn out that the couple was merely discussing the challenging job of getting their child to take his medication. But what else might be going on?
If you have a notebook or a laptop, you could start sketching out some ideas.
What if the couple's neighbor knows about a crime they committed? What kind of crime? And why would the neighbor disclose that he knew their terrible secret but not go to the police? Is there something he wants from them, and he's just waiting for the right time to use his knowledge as leverage?
Or, what if they wanted to deliver something anonymously and wanted a friend to be the delivery person? What might they have wanted delivered, and to whom? What was so important about keeping their identity secret?
Keep notebooks. Write down notes. Keep pieces of conversations. Write about the way two people interacted in the grocery store. Or the mannerisms of the young man with the tattoo across his throat who sold you a ticket at the movie theater. These things are gold.
Inspiration from reading
I'm not sure if this happens to everyone, but I instantly have story ideas rattling around in my head when I read. It's not that I want to write the same story I'm reading. In fact, the idea that pops into my head may not appear to have been inspired in any way by the story.
Something else is at work. The creative thinking brain clicks on when we read, and it can inspire us to want to bring our own characters to life. I very often have to set a book down to write down the story ideas that came to mind so that I can clear the noise from my head and focus on the story I'm reading without distraction.
Writing teachers all say the same thing: to become a better writer, you must be a better reader. These two things are like inhaling and exhaling. You must breathe in to breathe out.
Turning memories and experiences into art
The things that happen in our lives can be happy memories, painful memories, things we are wistfully nostalgic about, or vague ideas that we are not even certain are real memories. Regardless, they are ripe for storytelling. There are multiple approaches you could take:
Jot down as much as you remember from a life experience, making a note where a piece of the memory is vague or missing.
Write memories as if they were fictional, putting a character into your shoes, and capturing how that person thinks and behaves.
Write the story in narrative form: have a narrator tell your story and describe each detail to you as if you weren't there.
Writing our life experiences as fictional works gives them new life. It can reduce the power those experiences sometimes have over us. If you are writing the story, you are the one with the power. You can tell as much or as little of it as you wish. And if there was an antagonist in real life who caused you harm, you can punish them in the fictional world. (Yes, you get to. You're welcome!)
I've been running a workshop on Discord, and this was the exercise we did last week — to write a memory as if it was fiction, putting a character in your place. You can read the piece I turned out from the exercise here: Landscape in Motion.
Getting started when you don't know where to start
One of the most terrible things for a writer to do is to sit and look at a blank page or screen, hoping inspiration will come. I would rather take a hot poker in the eye. If you keep an idea notebook, you should never have to face a blank page. But if you do get stuck, try a short writing exercise just to get the words flowing.
For example:
Think of a word or an image. It could be the word "tan" or the image of a woman dressed in red. Anything.
Set a timer for five minutes and start writing. Don't stop writing until the timer goes off.
Once you have your five-minute writing piece in front of you, you've got something to work with. You can add onto it if you want something longer, or you can polish it as a micro-fiction piece. To make it complete, you will need to make sure your story has the key elements of a story — including character development, a conflict, a story arc, and a resolution. It may take a little time to edit into shape, or you may find it takes weeks or even months, if your fledgling piece is to become a longer form work such as a novella or novel.
Just don't stare at that blank page!
Join our weekly workshop
Want to work with writers and editors to improve your writing? Join me for a weekly fiction writing workshop at Steemhouse Community on Discord.
The writing workshop collection
You can browse my collection of writing workshop posts in the links below.
@mariannewest's #freewrite exercises. The latest one is here.
