Write Great Fiction--Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

remember:
The journey of a thousand miles requires plenty of snacks.
So feel free to eat while you do these exercises.
THE TOP TWENTY WAYS TO GET HUNDREDS OF PLOT IDEAS
    Here are twenty fast, simple, and fun ways to develop your own unique plot ideas:
1. The What-If Game
    This is perhaps the oldest, and still the best, creative game for the novelist. Originality is nothing more than connecting familiar elements in unfamiliar ways. The what-if game gets our minds thinking in such a way as to make those connections.
    The what-if game can be played at any stage of the writing process, but it is especially useful for finding ideas. Train your mind to think in terms of what-if, and it will perform marvelous tricks for you.
    For example, when you read something interesting, ask yourself, “What if?” Let all sorts of connections burst forth.
    For one week do the following:
Read the newspaper asking “What if?” while encountering each article.
For every TV show or commercial you watch, ask, “What if?”
Let your mind roam free.
Write down your what-if questions on a master list.
Put the list aside and come back to it a few days later. Take what sounds promising and jot down some more notes about it. Your next story may start here.
2. Titles
    Make up a cool title, and then write a book to go with it.
    Sound wacky? It isn’t. A title can set your imagination zooming, looking for a story.
    Titles can come from a variety of sources like poetry, quotations, and the Bible. Go through a book of quotations, like
Bartlett’s
and jot down interesting phrases. Make a list of several words randomly drawn from the dictionary and combine them. Story ideas will begin bubbling up around you.
    Take first lines from novels and make up a title. Dean Koontz’s
Midnight
begins, “Janice Capshaw liked to run at night.”What might you do with that?
    Perhaps something like these:
She Runs by Night. The Night Runner. Runner of Darkness. Night Run
.
    Now all you have to do is choose one and write a novel to go with it. It’s easy.
3. The List
    Early in his career, Ray Bradbury made a list of nouns that flew out of his subconscious. These became fodder for his stories.
    Start your own list. Let your mind comb through the mental pictures of your past and quickly write one- or two-word reminders. I did this once, and my own list of more than one hundred items includes:
The drapes (a memory about a pet puppy who tore my mom’s new drapes, so she gave him away the next day. I climbed a tree in protest and refused to come down).
The hill (that I once accidentally set fire to).
The fireplace (in front of which we had many a family gathering).
Cigar smoke (my dad, who loved his stogies).
    Each of these is the germ of a possible story or novel. They resonate from my past. I can take one of these items and brainstorm a whole host of possibilities that come straight from the heart. You can do the same.
4. Issues
    What issues push your buttons? Robert Ludlum once said, “I think arresting fiction is written out of a sense of outrage.” Outrage is a great emotion for a writer. So start an issues list. You might include:
abortion
environment
gun control
presidential politics
talk shows
people who yak on cell phones while driving
    The late Edward Abbey based his novels on issues he cared about. For him, writing was a calling as well as a craft, which is one reason his books inspired a wide readership. The writer, Abbey believed, must be a moral voice. “Since we cannot expect truth from our institutions,” he wrote, “we must expect it from our writers!”
    So one way to write who you are is to find the issues that press your hot buttons, then press them!
    If you embody your moral viewpoint in a three-dimensional character who takes vigorous action to vindicate his cause, you’ll virtually guarantee a story packed with emotion and dramatic possibilities. Want that in your fiction? Then do