J.R. Johnson

This is a somewhat random selection of books I like.

What do they have in common? Awesomeness, that’s what (at least to my mind:). But at their core, they each have a different, clever, well thought-out idea that powers the story engine. And this is just a selection of one person’s likes. There are so many ways to tell a story, and so many ideas from which to start. 

Great. So how do you get to a good idea?

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”

— Linus Pauling

Excellent, so helpful. It’s good to have goals. But if you’re like me, you might be wondering what exactly that means, and how one goes about it?

So glad you asked! There are lots of ways, of course, from diving in with a crappy first draft (I do like this approach, so helpful for getting past blocks, but it can waste a lot of time), writing prompts, genre-bending or gender-bending existing ideas, to headline news to updated fairy tales to history. And when I’ve seen most professional writers talk about this, getting ideas isn’t really the problem.

It’s getting a good idea. How do we do that?

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Here is a ten-part approach to generating, selecting, and growing ideas from Scott Myers. He recommends generating an idea a day for a month, to get in the habit. Given his background, his suggestions are geared toward screenwriting, but the essential principles are useful across genres.

• (Part 1): What if…
• (Part 2): Halliwell’s Film Guide
• (Part 3): Images
• (Part 4): Titles
• (Part 5): Gender-Bending
• (Part 6): Genre-Bending
• (Part 7): Think International
• (Part 8): Franchise
• (Part 9): Test Your Concept
• (Part 10): Challenge Yourself

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Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a writer or creative. That’s fine, but humans are still wired to think in terms of stories. It’s how we understand the world, solve problems, and plan for the future.

“Stories the world over are almost always about people with problems,” writes Jonathan Gottschall. They display “a deep pattern of heroes confronting trouble and struggling to overcome.” So a possible formula for a story = character(s) + predicament(s) + attempted extrication(s). This pattern transmits social rules and norms, describing what counts as violations and approved reactions. Stories offer “feelings we don’t have to pay [full cost] for.” They are simulated experiments in people-physics, freeing us from the limits of our own direct experience.

— It Is in Our Nature to Need Stories

What do you see when you look out the window? What stories might you tell about the couple across the street, or the rundown house on the next block, or the accident you just drove past?

It’s that simple, and that hard.

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