From Idea to Story

Complicating the Issue

 

By Mary Rosenblum

 

            You get this great idea.  You’ve got a cool conflict.  You know where you’ll probably start, you know where the story has to end up.  But a third of the way there, or so, you realize….it’s boring.  So what do you do? 

            A story idea does not a powerful story make. Even if your conflict is really cool, you have to keep readers engaged and entertained and committed from page one to the end of the story.  This is where imagination comes in. This is where you earn you title of ‘writer’.  If nothing much is happening and you see a long stretch of blank pages ahead of you between hre and the ending, make something happen.  It’s as simple as that. 

            This is actually a strategy that you can use to turn a ‘ho hum’ conflict and resolution into something that a publisher will happily pay money for.  Let’s give it a try. 

 

See Jane Lose Her Keys

            We’re going to begin with a very simple plot.  Jane loses her car keys.  Her boss has told her that if she is late to work one more time, she will be fired.  In a panic, she searches the house top to bottom and finally, finds her keys.  She makes it to work in the nick of time and retains her job.  Conflict and resolution, right?  Do you really think an editor would pay money for this story? 

            So let’s make this more fun.

 

The Mystery Version

            Jane is going to be late for work.  She can’t find her keys and her boss will fire her.   She needs the job because her uncle, estranged from the family, is trying to force her to sell and if she can’t pay the property taxes, she’ll have to.  She looks everywhere, including the old desk that has been in the family house since before she was born and she hasn’t had the heart to get rid of.  She accidentally trips a secret drawer in the desk and finds a key…not her car key but an old fashioned key.  And realizes it must be to the funny locked door in the basement that her parents told her was nothing more than an old, filled-in root cellar.   She is already late, she has lost her job.  So she goes downstairs and tries it, why not?  With some work, the key turns and she finds the root cellar….full of Civil War treasure…silver, gold coins, rotting furniture…and a skeleton!  The skeleton is much more recent than the rest and it turns out that her uncle killed a man he owed a gambling debt to and hid him in the treasure room he had discovered, intending to loot the treasure later.  But his father lost the house to Jane’s father and he has not had a chance since.  Her uncle is arrested and she is able to pay off the taxes with some of the pieces from the room.

 

The Fantasy Version.

            Jane is late for work and her keys are nowhere to be found.  Then she remembers the gypsy locksmith who made her a duplicate set of car keys and made a couple of cryptic comments at the same time.  Sure enough, she finds them, and in relief, starts her car and zooms down the roads on her way to work.  But as she turns left onto her favorite shortcut….she finds herself driving along a strange road in what quickly turns into a very strange world. When she turns around, she cannot find her way back.  Trapped in this new world, she finds a love and a richer life.  She never goes back to be formally fired by her boss. 

 

The Suspense Version

            Jane is late for work and after a panicked search, she finds her keys.  Slamming out of the house, she tears off to work.  But on the way, trying to beat the clock because she can’t afford to be fired, she spots a kid out on the bridge abutment…does he mean to suicide?  She stops, realizes that in her haste she has left her cell phone home, and hurries to the rail.  Nobody else has stopped, can’t they see him?  She calls to him and he’s just a kid.  He took a dare and slipped and his ‘friends’ ran away.  He can’t hold on.  She tries to flag down cars but nobody stops and he’s about to fall.  Terrified, she climbs over the rail and edges her way along the structure beneath the bridge until she can reach him.  Her brother jumped from a bridge when he was seventeen.  She can’t let this kid fall.  She finally reaches him and is able to get hold of his wrist.  Slowly, they make their way back, but her strength is failing, she can’t hold him, and they may both fall.  But people have stopped, rescuers meet them, pull them to safety.  She is late for work, but her boss gives her a raise.  And she becomes the ‘big sister’ this kid needs and realizes that she will no longer be lonely and lingering guilt about her brother’s suicide has been laid to rest. 

 

            All three of these stories use the same basic idea:  Jane loses her keys and will be fired if she is late to work. She finds her keys. 

           

            That is the magic of storytelling.  For every idea, you have an infinite palette of possibilities.  So the next time that story seems to be boring, lagging, not doing much wonderful…well…just start complicating the issue.