I'm starting this thread to combine some ideas kicked around on the Poe, Holmes, and Jet Fury conversations. I've always been interested in the way story themes and plot points reappear, evolve, and intermingle over time. I think the adage "There is nothing new under the sun" is basically true. When you think of the countless trillions of words written in English alone you have to admit that a completely original story idea is almost impossible. New details will enter the idea stream from time to time. 19th century writers didn't know about microconductors or DNA. But most stories re-examine familiar characters, motivations, and plots through the author's (hopefully) unique lens. This doesn't seem to me a bad thing. Much delight comes from seeing the way an author synthesizes classic themes into a new work.
In my college's library I discovered the 1928 book Plotto, the Master Book of all Plots by William Wallace Cook. This bizarre tool--no other description quite fits--was designed to partially mechanize the creation of plots for popular fiction. The reality is that Plotto-generated stories are mechanical and cliche ridden. They reflect the lowest common denominator of the trite stories hacked out by scribblers like Cook. I wonder if some writers still use Plotto?
This is very interesting to me, as a comic book story writer, and one who has worked on a comic strip, and was working on a book series (now paused). I grew up reading Carl Barks, and otherwise, mostly 19th Century classics (in book form), such as Dickens, Poe, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, James Fennimore Cooper, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc.
I take my own stories from happenings (experiences) in my own life, and memorable characters I've met, and the emotional situations, struggles, triumphs, failures, etc. that all people go through in their lives, because people have to identify with reality that they see in their own lives and experience. Ive found that one has to write about what he or she knows, otherwise it will not ring true, and readers will see that, and reject it. But, if one has a regular quota of magazine articles, short stories, or books per unit of time from their publishers, of course, there will be pressure to try to make the story creation and laying out process faster than searching one's soul for additional storylines with which readers will identify.
For my comic book stories, I use, for the most part, the system Carl Barks used. I either start with a wild scene I'd like to see (and draw) as a memorable splash panel, and work backwards from that to a situation that would best fit a given character among the pantheon of lead characters available to me (Mostly those in The Disney Duck Universe), and then adapt it to him or her. Their normal way of reacting in a given situation would be worked back from having chosen a way to connect the character to the situation that leads to the climactic splash panel scene. OR, I may observe an interesting or suspenseful situation in real life that resulted in a funny result, and adapt that situation to the main known characteristics of my best fit lead characters. The use of coincidences that look like something else is going on than what is really happening that leads to gross misunderstandings and very funny outcomes, or tragic outcomes in which the lead character, who, due to a character defect or foible, did something very unwise, selfish, or just downright wrong, leads to him learning his lesson (or - leads to him NOT learning his lesson)- and the reader gets to make a judgement that might ring a bell with his or her experience in life (or just more experience in considering such matters, or insight into Human behaviour).
While under deadline pressure, and having a writer's block period, and needing to come up with new story ideas, I bought a book in 1994, titled:
Plots Unlimited, by Tom Sawyer and Arthur David Weingarten, with related computer programme. Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Plots-Unlimited-Generating-Virtually-Limitless/dp/0962747602.
Software:
http://www.ashleywilde.com/.
It was generated with the idea of having many different paths to branch out from the basic starting point of a plot, to unlimited ways the story line could turn. And all of that had been programmed into a computer, and the results shown in boxes full of ALL next story scenarios in paths connected by arrows. They showed all (or, at least many) possible paths for each given story stage. At each stage in a generic story, there might be 6-7 different paths which can be take, and you can put together several of the most promising-looking paths, and compare their results, and chose the one you like best according to your needs of being interesting and likable to the reader. And this will also allow you to assure that your resulting story will not not be too much like your past stories, your company's other authors current stories, and the competing publishers stories. It is, basically, trying out an inexhaustible number of potential generic next turns in a story, at every potential turning point. In that way, EVERY possible story involving people can be constructed.
As you al might have guessed I tried it out, but in the end found out I didn't need the books generic potential turns, and particular potential turns, and never used the book, per se. But,it seems that the logical method of systematically thinking about several ways the story could go at each turn, and choosing the best few, and taking those few forward to see where they lead, and again comparing, and taking maybe the best two from there, and then, finally ending on one track, and seeing where it goes, was likely subliminally injected into my subconscious mind by osmosis, and has been a part of my own story development process ever since.
I think that starting with assessing what your needs are, and a vague idea of what you want as an end product, and then using logical thinking and a systematic process to move towards it is the best way to work in a time pressure situation. In Denmark, for several years, I worked in a COOP studio, where several writers would brainstorm together, talking over story ideas. We also gave feedback to each other on our story ideas. Each writer would end up taking the story he or she had started, but all of them would be enriched from the feedback and injection of ideas from others. I was also in a writers' group in Holland. We'd rotate meetings at each of our houses or flats. One can work from the start of the story towards its end, or the end back to the start, or the middle outward to both the start and the end. None are necessarily better than the others. Those comedy writing group sessions were a lot of fun. Since the pandemic, I just get feedback from colleagues one at a time. I suppose a group session is possible using meeting apps or programmes.
No, there is no story that has a new basic plot - only, possibly, an unusual specific chain of events, IF the chain is long enough to be a rather rare combination. But the main thing is that to be successful, it would need to make the reader live in the story by identifying with one or more of the characters, recognising the same situations in life that he or she has experienced and sharing that emotion, or, at least identifying with it.
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Topic: Where'd you get your ideas...? (Read 1655 times)
