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There's something about an empty journal that's even more unnerving and exhilarating than the usual thrill of a blank piece of paper. A new journal means, to a certain extent, a new identity, one that will be created here as I write. So, as this is a writing journal, I'll christen it by writing about the point where stories begin: the initial idea.
Ideas come in many forms - most of mine start as little tattered story bits which have to be collected and stitched together before they're strong enough to carry a whole story, its ideas and people and passions. Although the process varies from story to story, I have a road I tend to follow, especially for one off stories set in the real world.
It begins with a place. I've got a particular love of stories where the setting is essential to the action, the kind that wouldn't work if they were set anywhere else. Add in a real appreciation of the mood and atmosphere, and an understanding of the way the characters interact with that landscape, and I'm going to enjoy the book - it's why I adore Harper Fox's books so much - she makes the landscape tangible and integrates the sense of place with the emotional struggles of her characters. I'm a wanderer, myself. A sunny Saturday will find me walking around the North Downs and I often head off somewhere new for a day or two, just to see what's there. I now look at places and think - what could be the story here? Sometimes, it takes years to find a set of characters to go with the place, but I'm constantly gathering images and scraps of information - recently, I've learnt about attempts to regenerate tourism in Blaenau Ffestiniog, a bleak little Welsh ex-mining town. I've scrambled up Snowdon in the snow; been on a restored steam railway (more than one); walked along a Victorian pier in thick fog. All these places have story potential.
But they're not stories yet. They're missing the most vital ingredient of all. They need people. And here's where having a strong sense of place comes in handy for generating stories. As an example, take this place.
That's the lock keeper's cottage at Stoke Lock, one of the oldest locks in the country. It's on the River Wey, a few miles along the tow path from prosperous Guildford. It's got a nature reserve just opposite and is only marred by the occasional whiff from the nearby rubbish dump. It's a location with potential. Sitting there, I read information put up by the National Trust worker in charge of the this stretch of river. I watched cyclists and dog walkers go past, as well as a group of canoeists coming ashore to carry their canoes across the lock. The river was busy with narrowboats, one with a cute and hyperactive puppy. There were a lot of options for a protagonist from this location.
Of course, you need more than just a place - shifting small details of the situation generates a whole new range of characters. This would be a very different place on a busy day in August (when, say, a very naughty dog could pull his owner into the canal just in time to land on top of a handsome canoeist) than in the middle of winter (when Ryan, sick of his flatmates throwing drunken parties without prior warning, slams the door and sets off down the towpath in the snow, only to stumble upon a sexy lockkeeper who's only too happy to keep him warm). A bigger shift brings even more variation - what if our sexy lockkeeper is an ex-soldier, freshly returned from the Peninsular War? What happens when he saves a beautiful youth from drowning only to realise that his mystery man is a Napoleonic spy?
Obviously, there's more to it than that. Here's where a few other factors come into play. Firstly, of course, is character. Your setting gives you a situation, but we all respond to challenges differently. A shy and awkward canoeist, in the scenario above, will take the story in a very different direction from a supremely confident army dog handler on leave. Secondly, you need some conflict to turn a situation into a plot. There has to be a problem to solve, a mystery to be revealed, or a misunderstanding to clear up. Contrasting characters immediately set up that conflict, with the added bonus of some sizzle and banter - if young Ryan is the kind of confident lad who has no hesitation in yelling at his housemates, let's make his lock keeper shy and uncertain of his own appeal. Try to find a combination of characters who will up the stakes - what happens when you throw together a conservation worker and the civil servant who has just signed off on major funding cuts to British Waterways? What if they're exes?
The conflict can be created by an external cause, of course, but the focus then has to be the emotional turmoil it creates - let our ex-soldier wrestle between his anger at his handsome spy, his unwillingness to bring trouble to his new life, and his horror at the awareness that he'll be sending the man to his death if he hands him over to the authorities, just like all those comrades he lost in battle.
Even if none of those stories ever make it onto the page, looking at a place and trying to find the story is a good mental exercise that will leave you with a good bank of story ideas. When I started trying to move away from slash writing on the one hand and original speculative fiction on the other, one of the first things I did was to start flicking through photographs and thinking what if?
Ideas come in many forms - most of mine start as little tattered story bits which have to be collected and stitched together before they're strong enough to carry a whole story, its ideas and people and passions. Although the process varies from story to story, I have a road I tend to follow, especially for one off stories set in the real world.
It begins with a place. I've got a particular love of stories where the setting is essential to the action, the kind that wouldn't work if they were set anywhere else. Add in a real appreciation of the mood and atmosphere, and an understanding of the way the characters interact with that landscape, and I'm going to enjoy the book - it's why I adore Harper Fox's books so much - she makes the landscape tangible and integrates the sense of place with the emotional struggles of her characters. I'm a wanderer, myself. A sunny Saturday will find me walking around the North Downs and I often head off somewhere new for a day or two, just to see what's there. I now look at places and think - what could be the story here? Sometimes, it takes years to find a set of characters to go with the place, but I'm constantly gathering images and scraps of information - recently, I've learnt about attempts to regenerate tourism in Blaenau Ffestiniog, a bleak little Welsh ex-mining town. I've scrambled up Snowdon in the snow; been on a restored steam railway (more than one); walked along a Victorian pier in thick fog. All these places have story potential.
But they're not stories yet. They're missing the most vital ingredient of all. They need people. And here's where having a strong sense of place comes in handy for generating stories. As an example, take this place.
That's the lock keeper's cottage at Stoke Lock, one of the oldest locks in the country. It's on the River Wey, a few miles along the tow path from prosperous Guildford. It's got a nature reserve just opposite and is only marred by the occasional whiff from the nearby rubbish dump. It's a location with potential. Sitting there, I read information put up by the National Trust worker in charge of the this stretch of river. I watched cyclists and dog walkers go past, as well as a group of canoeists coming ashore to carry their canoes across the lock. The river was busy with narrowboats, one with a cute and hyperactive puppy. There were a lot of options for a protagonist from this location.
Of course, you need more than just a place - shifting small details of the situation generates a whole new range of characters. This would be a very different place on a busy day in August (when, say, a very naughty dog could pull his owner into the canal just in time to land on top of a handsome canoeist) than in the middle of winter (when Ryan, sick of his flatmates throwing drunken parties without prior warning, slams the door and sets off down the towpath in the snow, only to stumble upon a sexy lockkeeper who's only too happy to keep him warm). A bigger shift brings even more variation - what if our sexy lockkeeper is an ex-soldier, freshly returned from the Peninsular War? What happens when he saves a beautiful youth from drowning only to realise that his mystery man is a Napoleonic spy?
Obviously, there's more to it than that. Here's where a few other factors come into play. Firstly, of course, is character. Your setting gives you a situation, but we all respond to challenges differently. A shy and awkward canoeist, in the scenario above, will take the story in a very different direction from a supremely confident army dog handler on leave. Secondly, you need some conflict to turn a situation into a plot. There has to be a problem to solve, a mystery to be revealed, or a misunderstanding to clear up. Contrasting characters immediately set up that conflict, with the added bonus of some sizzle and banter - if young Ryan is the kind of confident lad who has no hesitation in yelling at his housemates, let's make his lock keeper shy and uncertain of his own appeal. Try to find a combination of characters who will up the stakes - what happens when you throw together a conservation worker and the civil servant who has just signed off on major funding cuts to British Waterways? What if they're exes?
The conflict can be created by an external cause, of course, but the focus then has to be the emotional turmoil it creates - let our ex-soldier wrestle between his anger at his handsome spy, his unwillingness to bring trouble to his new life, and his horror at the awareness that he'll be sending the man to his death if he hands him over to the authorities, just like all those comrades he lost in battle.
Even if none of those stories ever make it onto the page, looking at a place and trying to find the story is a good mental exercise that will leave you with a good bank of story ideas. When I started trying to move away from slash writing on the one hand and original speculative fiction on the other, one of the first things I did was to start flicking through photographs and thinking what if?
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