Hello to week four!
How are you guys finding things so far? Remember in Part 3 I referred to the preparation of writing a book like building a house? Well, by now you should all have your Facebook and Twitter accounts up and running, regularly posting, and making a ton of new friends. That means you’ve sought out some building contractors and received a pile of estimates.
Part Four is all about drawing up the plans, ready for the architect.
Okay, let’s get down to down to business. The whole point of doing all this is because you have a bunch of ideas you’re dying to turn into a novel, right?
Firstly, lets just run over the basics.
Where do ideas come from?
This is like asking how long is a piece of string. Ideas are everywhere: magazines, newspapers, lines in a song, a word in a dictionary. It’s what our imagination does with them that matters.
Take this photograph for example:
We all know and love TV sitcom, ‘Friends’. When we look at this picture we automatically think of the perfect life we’d all like to live, with funny, humorous, neighbours who all have a great life. That’s because one, it’s make-believe, and two, it’s written as a comedy. Now, let’s say you sway towards the genre of romance. Look at the picture again. What do you see? Probably, pretty much how the show was towards the end of its run; relationship ups and downs, heartache, weddings….
Now, if you are like me – or maybe you’re just twisted and demented – you may sway towards the thriller genre. You may see Phoebe as a sociopath. Chandler as a womanizer. Monica as a spoilt brat who would kill to get what she wants. Or, maybe you see six friends just days before one of them accidently dies. The other five decide to cover it up until years later they start to die, one by one.
See how one photograph can set the idea’s train in motion?
But, one snippet of an idea doesn’t necessary give you enough material to write a novel.
Same but different rule
Actually, I think this is a good time to tell you about the ‘same but different’ rule.
Every idea has been done before. I’m sorry but that’s the cold, hard, truth of it. If you are discarding ideas because they have been used before then you will never write a book and should give up now.
The ‘same but different’ rule applies to every single film or book you have ever seen or read. The reason you may not have noticed it is because of this rule. I can see I’m loosing you. Bear with me. Let’s take a film we have all seen. Halloween.
Here’s the basic idea. A psychopath runs around and kills sex hungry teenagers.
Sound familiar?
Maybe you’re also thinking about ‘Scream’. You know, where the killer runs around and kills a load of teenagers?
Or, what about Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street? Doesn’t a killer run around and kill a group of teenagers in them too?
Of course he does. So why are all these films (along with a boat-load of others), so different?
Because the writers used the same but different rule.
In Halloween, the killer is an escaped mental patient out to kill his sister. In Friday the 13th, the killer is a man repeatedly acting out revenge for his mother’s death. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, the killer is a dead murderer who uses dreams as a way to get his victims.
Scream was very clever and took the ‘same but different’ rule a step further by surprising audiences with not one killer – but two. (And, I’m ashamed to admit, one I did not see coming).
So, although all these ideas are the same, they are different.
Building on your idea
Having the kernel of an idea is only the start for a book. But it isn’t enough. Here’s why.
I have an idea. It goes something like this. I have a girl who has lost her memory and has to find out who she is. It’s simple and it’s been done a thousand times before…. and I’m comfortable with that. I like simple. Simple is good.
But how the hell am I to get between 80-100 thousand words from that idea? Even my imagination couldn’t go with the flow on that one. Well maybe it could, but I’m a freak of nature.
No. This is where much thinking and plotting comes into it. Now, plotting we will talk about in week or so. But for now, we need to work on further thinking our idea.
I know I am writing a thriller. I also know I want both a female and male protagonist. Plus, there has to be one antagonist, too. Now I have an idea I need to fit a minimum of three characters into. But how should I tackle this amnesia? How does she get amnesia in the first instance? I know. I’ll have her thrown of a bridge. Cool. But why? Has she witnessed something? Is she in witness protection? Is she on the run and in hiding? Maybe. And this is where the hero cop comes into it, with all his luggage and the cat and mouse game begins.
Okay. I have a rough idea of why and where my story will go. Now I have something I can develop further with plotting. But, before I begin plotting, I need to work on my characters. This is something we’ll look at next week in Part Five.
So, this weeks task is to go find an idea. I don’t care where it comes from. Maybe you overhear some people talking. Maybe you pass a road side advertisement. I want to know where you found your idea and what it consisted of. For example, if a picture, what kind of picture. If it was in a song, tell me the song and the line/word/verse that caught your attention. And, as I love to know how good your imaginations are, I want your to put your brave head on and also tell me what your idea is.
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Great post, Donna. I’ve got a great idea I thought I had all fleshed out for my current WIP, but now I’m finding some holes and having to make some fixes. That’s one of the most aggravating things of being a writer. I’m trying very hard to plot – and I did for this book, but until I write some, I just cannot SEE the full direction of the book. Does that make any sense, lol??
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Stacy, I love plotting but still have to make changes as I go. I think of other ideas for a scene and it may mean I need to change or add something earlier on for it all to make sense. I have a white board covered in index cards detailing each scene. On to that I then add a whole heap of post stick notes with extras and new bits I need to add in 🙂
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I love this series. Whenever people ask me where I get my ideas, I tell them ‘Life’. If you look around, there are tons of ideas right in front of you. It just takes asking, “What if?” Now, coming up with the other 80,000 words is the fun part.
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Lol, I have a little ideas book that this crammed with notes and stuff. I’ll never ever get to use all of it though. 🙂
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Ditto on Tameri’s comment. But I also get a lot of ideas as I read different works of fiction. That seems to stimulate my brain in the creative mode. 🙂
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Karen, it’s the ‘same but different’ rule!…. or copying 🙂
Only kidding. Ideas are everywhere. It just takes a writer to see them 🙂
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Great post, Donna! I live by the “what if” for story ideas too. And I love how we as writers can bring to life totally different stories based off of similar, basic plots. The horror movie examples are excellent. They are each so unique, follow different rules and have secondary plot twists to keep the story and tension going.
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I knew the concept, but had never put the words “same but different” to it. Somehow that was a zinger that made things click. Thanks for a great post!
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[…] You Want To Be An Author? Part 4 – Ideas from Donna […]
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Great post Donna! And “same but different” rule – this is key! As we all know, everything has been done before…but we can do it in different ways and that’s what will make it stand out. Hopefully! And was just watching Scream last night! Now am overwhelmed to read how to get 80-100K words from a kernel – sounds impossible doesnt it? Thanks for laying it all out.
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You’re welcome, Donna. I love the ‘same but different’ rule. And you’ll easily get you 80k if you plot….or write very BIG 🙂
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