Originally Posted by kirklancaster
(Post 7344390)
There are several methods which I use to generate story ideas. One is to start at the end of your story and work backwards. For example;
I set one award winning story; 'My Lady Will Not Come Tonight' - a 'first person' narrative - in the front room of an isolated, derelict country house at night. Outside the house, the wind batters the broken shutters, howls in through the broken window panes, and inside the dark front room, our protagonist is alone, sitting in front of a dying fire trying to stave off the bitter cold.
So having drafted the scene, now I ask myself; Who is this man? How did he come to be here? Why did he come here? What time period is the story set in?
The possibilities are endless; is he a criminal on the run and hiding out? If he is, what was his crime? Is he one of the original 'Gun Powder Plot' conspirators who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament with Catesby and Fawkes but managed to escape? Is he a bank robber? A serial killer?
Is he a werewolf waiting in his lair for the full moon to steal from behind clouds so his transmogrification can be completed, before he sets out on his nocturnal hunt for victims?
You get the idea.
Another method I use, is to select an old photograph of unknown people - magazines, newspapers, the internet are all great sources, it doesn't matter - then imagine who they are, and what their stories are.
Paintings are other story generators. I won a writer's club award for a short I wrote based upon an Edward Hopper painting of 1942 called 'Nighthawks'. The painting features 'Phillies' bar and through the windows we see the bartender behind the counter and a man and woman seated at the far end of the counter and the rear view of another man seated nearest to us. The customers are all obviously dressed 1940's style with the men suited and wearing fedora hats.
I wrote my story in a 'hard-nosed' style associated with 1940's detective fiction writers such as Raymond Chandler, and had the guy who had his back to us as the protagonist telling the story in the 'first person'.
He was a regular at 'Phillies' - more so lately, because his wife had just 'run out' on him, and Phillies was somewhere to while away the lonely hours:
"... I could see Philly was all alone again as usual. I pushed open the door and sat down on my usual stool - the one which should have had a card on it which said; 'Reserved For Chump' but didn't."
We learn that not only does 'Philly' make lousy coffee but also that the protagonist blames himself for his wife leaving him because he was too busy working to pay her enough attention;
"Coffee or wives, I guess both grow cold if left alone for too long".
Then the young couple enter. They are both strangers and hand a photograph to Phillie then ask him if he's seen the girl in the photo?
It turns out the girl they're looking for is the woman's sister, but Phillie shakes his head, so they show it to our protagonist. We learn that not only is she a "beautiful looking broad", but also that he has seen her - a couple of days ago:
"I don't know if she was in a hurry to get away from someone or in a hurry to meet someone, but she came tearing down that road in her old Plymouth as if the Devil himself was chasing her and nearly ran into me"
Our protagonist relates how the girl stopped and apologised, then asked him if he knows somewhere where she could spend the night:
"...That's when I pointed down the road and told her about the 'cuckoo's' place."
He goes on to tell them how he told the girl that the 'cuckoo' was a local 'oddball' called Norman who ran the 'Bates Motel' with his mother, but that he was harmless really:
" She flashed a beautiful smile and said thank you, and as she got back into her car I asked her name; 'Crane' she said, 'Marion Crane'.
You will have to look up the synopsis of the Hitchcock classic film 'Psycho', to understand how I weaved that fiction into my fiction but the point is that the Hopper painting 'Nighthawks' inspired my writing.
I am not a professional writer, though I have sold a couple of shorts and had very 'near misses' with a couple of screenplays, but I will impress upon you, that in my opinion, there is a need in all short story writing for a gripping 'hook' to entice the reader into your story. This is especially true with the horror genre, and I won another award from a magazine for a horror story I wrote which had the following opening:
"I cannot tell you at what precise moment my father's finger fell away from his rotting corpse...."
Good luck with your writing and if none of he above ideas suit you, then there are 'story idea generators' online which you can try. :wavey:
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