How to Turn an Idea into a Story
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I suspect that most people reading this post will already have an idea for a story they wish to tell. Perhaps it’s come from a life experience — either your own or that of someone close to you. Perhaps you wish to recount the amazing journey your parents took to reach Canada, or the incredible fight you had to put up when life turned against you. Or perhaps your idea is something that has simply sprung up in your imagination, a shocking or strange connection that has shaped itself into something that must be told: stolen jewels, a talking lizard, a lost kingdom. This idea may be fantastic fiction or it may be simple (but still amazing) fact. Whatever it is, whatever genre it can eventually be put into, all ideas share one essential element:
Ideas are the core of story, but they are not story itself.
I have lost track of the number of times people, once they find out I am a writer, will say “This amazing thing happened to me/my dad/my cat. You should put it in a book!” And then they recount, not a story, but an incident. It may indeed be amazing, scary, or charming — but it is not a story, in the sense we need it to be, as writers and as readers. Because, for us, stories require so much more. They are not just non-stop action. They are characters in action. They need someone to undergo the experience, to be provoked, challenged; to rise to the occasion; to fail, then eventually to succeed. As readers we need to follow someone on a journey, not just hang out with them at a bus stop where a wild dog bites their leg.
Fear not! That amazing incident or insight can be teased into something bigger, something more satisfying. Into, in fact, a fully fledged story. But how?
Process. It is all about the actual process of writing. This was the vital lesson I finally understood, and it lies at the core of my teaching practice today. What holds people back — as it did me for years — is the belief that the whole story must be there, complete, before one even begins writing it down. That, until one knows everything about the story (who, what, when, why and where, to give the simple checklist), it is not worth beginning. But understanding that writing is a process makes it much easier and way more fun. You can also think of writing as a journey; is it interesting to take a journey where you know everything that is going to happen and you’ve already seen all there is to see? Or is the fun to explore and have the adventure? To discover what the story actually is while you are making it?
So here are three “Golden Rules” for beginning the journey of turning your idea (or “the incident”) into a story:
Rule 1: Never show anyone your first draft
Too many people are held back by fear of what other people will think of their writing, and so think of them. I know I was. But if you write only for yourself and resist the temptation to show your mother, your partner, or your brother your first scribbles, it frees those scribbles to become something else. To develop into what they need to be, as opposed to what you think (or fear) someone else wants them to be.
Rule 2: In the first draft, there is no such thing as good or bad writing
If you don’t worry at this stage of the process about “good” writing or “bad” writing, if you are only concerned about teasing this idea out into a story (more anon), then your mind is free to roam everywhere it needs to. It’s free to do what minds do: make the connections between character, ideas, incidents, and relationships that turn ideas into stories. Do not compare yourself to your favorite writer. Your favourite writer was not thinking of good or bad at this stage of the process either, trust me.
Rule 3: Writing is writing
This sounds so glib. I came up with this rule over a beer at a writing conference when an established writer was talking about how much they were looking forward to the flight home so they could write — but they weren’t sure how to set about it. That’s when I said, “writing is writing.” Because it is not thinking about writing. It is not planning to write (though some planning can be useful at both an earlier and a later stage of the process). It is allowing the part of the mind that knows how to write to do just that. It is about freedom, and release, and applying the other two rules: no one will see what you write, and there is nothing good or bad about your work. This part of the process is just about unfurling your story idea and seeing how it connects to all the other ideas. It is also about asking yourself the questions around the idea. The dog might have bitten you at the bus stop — but why were you at the bus stop anyway? Why did you choose to wear stilettos and not sneakers? Oh, and by the way, what is the dog’s journey to that place where it decided it had to bite you?
That is letting the brain do what it does best: making the connections between character and story
Now, what if all you know is that you want to write, but you truly don’t have an idea to begin with? Again, writing is about freedom. Let the brain do what it does best. Be a blank slate for the words.
There is a quote from the German philosopher Nietzsche that I like:
“One must have chaos within… who would give birth to a dancing star.”
Believing that we must “know stuff” before we start is missing out on a key part of the process. If you believe the Big Bang Theory, everything began in chaos. Why not us?
Try this then: Write any word in the centre of a blank piece of paper. (Write “chaos” if you like!) Draw a line from it to a new bubble. Don’t think about it, just write a new word in the bubble. Draw another line, bubble, write another word. Keep going. Go back to “chaos” and start another line of bubbles. Nothing is good, nothing bad, writing is writing, all is free, and no one is going to read this but you.
Write a rude word. Put your boss’s name in the next bubble. After a load of bubbles, look at how they interact with each other. Write down a few sentences about how your boss shouted at you again, so you shoved your donut in his face and went to the bus stop…where a wild dog bit you.
Now, that’s a story!
Chris Humphreys teaches writing when he’s not writing award-winning and bestselling novels of his own. Chris has authored more than eighteen published books over his two decade career, with such illustrious houses as Doubleday, Knopf, and Orion. Learn more about Chris on his website.
