The wisest man who ever lived assures us that there is nothing new under the sun. So how does an author come up with an original idea for a novel?
One technique is to unite two unrelated ideas or questions. It worked for Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft). He writes:
"Two unrelated ideas, adolescent cruelty and telekinesis, came together and I had an idea" (p. 75).
That idea became Carrie, King's breakout novel.
"My novel The Dead Zone," King writes, "arose from two questions: Can a political assassin ever be right? And if he is, could you make him the protagonist of a novel? The good guy?" (p. 192).
After I read On Writing, I wondered if my novel had two unrelated ideas or questions. After thinking about this a bit, I came up with this:
What would motivate a woman to help a German POW escape from a Florida prisoner-of-war camp?
What would motivate a woman to abandon her child and not tell her family what she had done?
Those two motivations came together in my protagonist, though it turned out her child was kidnapped instead of abandoned.
What two unrelated ideas, questions, or motivations are the spark beneath your latest work-in-progress?
One technique is to unite two unrelated ideas or questions. It worked for Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft). He writes:
"Two unrelated ideas, adolescent cruelty and telekinesis, came together and I had an idea" (p. 75).
That idea became Carrie, King's breakout novel.
"My novel The Dead Zone," King writes, "arose from two questions: Can a political assassin ever be right? And if he is, could you make him the protagonist of a novel? The good guy?" (p. 192).
After I read On Writing, I wondered if my novel had two unrelated ideas or questions. After thinking about this a bit, I came up with this:
What would motivate a woman to help a German POW escape from a Florida prisoner-of-war camp?
What would motivate a woman to abandon her child and not tell her family what she had done?
Those two motivations came together in my protagonist, though it turned out her child was kidnapped instead of abandoned.
What two unrelated ideas, questions, or motivations are the spark beneath your latest work-in-progress?
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3 comments:
I like those questions. I will try to do that whenever I get to rewriting! Thanks
You know I love brainstorming and this is a wonderful technique to remember when trying to come up with new ideas- fiction, non-fiction or even that famous G word - goals!
Karen and Jeanie, thank you for stopping by! Coming up with unrelated questions or ideas may help with the Nano revisions for both fiction and nonfiction projects. And, yes, even for GOALS!
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