How professionals generate story ideas

If you're going to make a living writing then one great story idea is not enough. You have to keep churning them out. If you manage to get the attention of an agent or editor with a great piece of writing they will want to know what other ideas you have in your bank. I know this because a Television Story Producer and Script Editor told me. Here's what else I learned from them on how to collate a story portfolio.

Stories must be realer than reality

Reality is a great resource but just because something happened in real life doesn't mean it's going to be believable on the page. Sure, people do crazy unpredictable things in life but in your story-world actions must be motivated and believable in the context in which you create them. People just won't buy it otherwise.

Imitation rarely results in success

Genre and medium conventions always apply if you want to write in those genres for those mediums but don't slavishly copy writers you admire. It's originality and freshness that will make an editor sit up and notice. Remember, these people trawl through acres of new writing. Give them a reason to pick yours.

Practice active listening

You're a creative right? Words should just tumble out of you right? Wrong. If you're looking for ideas you should shut-up and listen. The only words coming out of your mouth should be those open questions you ask when someone is telling you an interesting story.

Research

You don't have to write what you know but you should know what you write. Just enough research to stimulate your imagination and give authenticity to your work – no more is required.

Separate generation and evaluation

Be clear – if you're creating ideas don't start assessing them or trying to work them too early – just keep those ideas coming. One exceptionally good idea is worth ten crap ones. Hell, one good idea is worth a hundred crap ones. So keep those ideas coming. You never know, todays crap idea may actually look pretty good tomorrow.

Develop a writers' network

It's a lonely business, but it doesn't have to be. Don't be afraid to phone a writer friend and talk ideas through. It's just an idea, and ideas can be tested and improved by talking them out with people who understand what you're about. Exercising  ideas like this will help generate new ones and take the originals into places you might not have got to alone.

Other Related Links:

The three phases of creativity

How to keep having great ideas

How to take an idea and develop it into a novel

Capturing ideas without suffocating them

How to make good writing great

You're probably sick of hearing that good writing requires well-drawn characters, exhilarating plots, conflict on every page and lots at stake - but that's really like saying what makes a great pizza is flour, eggs and tomato - we all know it takes a little more than that. Besides, a cursory analysis of what readers really like (i.e. what they keep buying) is a heady combination of story, romance and milieu.

Writing is exceptional when it becomes far greater than the sum of its parts – when the reader forgets the words and sees nothing but the world behind them; when the characters and plot become so entwined that you couldn't pull them apart. When you can't, in fact, see the science behind the magic. But how can we hope to achieve that?

Not easily, if at all. We have to start with the craft – this is the foundation of all great writing – but we can become obsessed with the craft itself and forget that it's just a means to an end. We can't win the race until we learn to drive, but let's make sure we don't stay in the pits fondling the gear-stick forever. We mustn't forget to look beyond the craft and remember why we're doing this. Here are some things to think about to help us achieve that.

Words are in service to your Story

You might want to be a poet, a word-smith, or a lyrical writer – but thinking of your work in those terms is already putting a barrier up between your story-world and your reader. If the reader is in awe of your beautifully constructed sentence she's not really being transported into your story-world or swept away by your characters. If that's the kind of writer you want to be then fine, but it will only invoke a superficial response from the reader, because

Emotion is the key to memorable writing

You probably laugh a lot a books, you may even find sequences breath-taking, but how often have you wept at a book you're reading, how often has your chest ached, and your heart gone out to characters? Not very often, and the books that made you do that are probably some of the best you've ever read. A character simply being emotional will not invoke an emotional response in the reader, a sad event alone will not do it either, because

Characters are inseparable from Story

The story reveals character and the characters make the story – you can have one without the other, and they can both be brilliantly constructed – but it's only when the two are intimately entwined do they really become effective. No one cares about a character without a story, and a story means nothing if it effects no-one. This is why context is the key to an emotional response in the reader, because

The effect of the story is more important than the story itself

A child being killed is a sad story, if you've characterised the mother of that child before you take the child away it's far sadder, if the reader of that story happens to be a mother she's going to feel it even more. Emotion is created in the reader when a cared-for and understood character is subjected to emotional events. Events are emotional because of what they mean to the character - either positive or negative. By doing this, we're on our way to making

Memorable moments

There will be only a handful of scenes, or moments, from all the books you've read which you will never forget, and the majority of these moments (if not all) will be events that had significant emotional impact for a character you cared about.

The effect of story-events on the reader is likely to be heightened if they tap into universal fears and hopes because the reader is more likely to share them with the character, or if the writer has particularly increased the significance of those fears and hopes pertinent to the character, so the reader can share with them through empathy. How best to let the reader understand your characters? Through action, because

Every hero needs a crisis

You don't really know a person until you see them under stress, which means (again) that character is revealed through action (i.e. plot) and the story will be driven by the character's response. Once again, we've come around to the point we made right at the start - that a truly great story is inseparable from its characters.

You see, if we manage that, we'll be famous.