Where do you get your ideas?

 Every author of fiction has been asked the question, as if story ideas were rare earths revealed only to a select few. But stories are all around us, all the time. To see one, you just need to know what to look for.

Some people say there are only seven basic plots in fiction. I think it's even simpler -- there is only one story, but we keep telling it in endless variations.

It goes like this. First, we have a character -- a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, an animal, an alien, a machine -- who lives in a place and time that may be real or fanciful.

Then something happens that pulls the character out of his everyday circumstances. Maybe a robot shows him an image of a princess who needs help, or a tornado lifts her house over a rainbow, or he meets a sultry blonde who asks him to find her missing baby sister.

>From that point on, the hero(ine) struggles against mounting opposition toward a moment of decision: trust the force, accept that there's no place like home, avenge your partner by turning in that sultry blonde who shot him.

The hero chooses, and finds himself transformed by the choice and by the struggle that led to it. Then maybe they all live happily ever after, or maybe the hero returns to his former life sadder but wiser. Not every story needs a happy ending.

So you want a story? Think about something that might happen -- you witness a crime, you find a payphone that lets you call 1935, you discover your neighbour is not what she seems -- then think about a choice that that unusual event might lead you to. Then decide which way you would choose.

The rest is just writing. --  Matthew Hughes ( from The Lonely Cry newsletter, Issue 15)


Matthew Hughes has launched a new web page at http://www.matthewhughes.org with
excerpts from his work, review quotes, news, and some practical how-to
advice for writers.