Brainstorming new story ideas

I like Dan Harmon’s 8 step story circle for exactly this reason – it’s so pared down, so simple that there’s almost nothing there at all; at the same time it’s so basic that it contains everything.

Why is it important that there be almost nothing there at all? Because too many plot points, targets, specifics are a straightjacket to my imagination. Don’t tell me it’s time for some supernatural aid, or to meet the threshold guardian. Don’t tell me it’s time for a mentor to come to my hero’s aid. It’s too much control, and my imagination is crushed. I think this is how stories become the kind of ‘formulaic’ that people complain about. Trying too hard to hit those plot points, kills imagination. We resort to cliche.

Rather tell me this is the ‘search’ phase of the story, and let my imagination fly. Let my imagination tell me if this means a simple search for old cats or if the search should be more complex, take up more story time, and envelope more of the other plot points, as it does for Chihiro in Spirited Away (blogged here) who seems to spend the entire story searching for one thing or another.

I haven’t started plotting my new story yet, but I plan to use these 8 steps to rustle up some ideas. If I’m stuck at step 4 I’ll initiate a search for something, anything and see where that leads. If I’m stuck at step 5, something will be found – it may be as small as a thought or as big as a mountain. And so on. If this sounds hacky, that’s really ok too – that’s fine in a first draft. It’s in subsequent edits that we can layer up theme and meaning.

I think any brainstorming method has benefits. Save the cat, The Hero’s Journey… anything that gives you a new perspective on your own story will help in building layers. So I’ll start with the most basic, most open system and plan to review each draft using different systems.

I’m eager to begin, but until the kids go back to school I hardly dare to. I want to see this project through to the end.

Story Circle Dichotomies: Plotting with Dan Harmon’s Story Circle

The hero’s journey is often described as a circle. Here, Dan Harmon shows us how he uses the circular form to plot a story for one of his TV shows. He uses dichotomies on two axes – opposing ideas that will be the engine of the story: The top and bottom represent the external physical journey, while the left and right represent the internal journey of personal change. Look:

Overlay the two circles to see how the external and internal journeys affect each other:

• Steps 1 to 3: Old moral outlook + world of comfort = Status quo.
• Steps 3 to 5: Old moral outlook + world of discomfort = Old behaviours make new problems worse.
• Steps 5 to 7: New moral outlook + World of discomfort = New behaviours make new problems solvable.
• Steps 7 to 1: New moral outlook + World of comfort = New behaviours result in life upgrade

Return to Dan’s example; for the physical journey, he takes a ‘biological racoon’ into the world of ‘storybook racoons’, and back. For the internal journey, he chooses to oppose dishonest and honest behaviour.

Put that all together and you get a dishonest racoon who travels into a storybook world to learn valuable lessons about honesty. He returns to the biological world no longer keen to steal out of peoples’ garbage. Perhaps.

We’re calling these opposing forces Dichotomies. Stories are about human beings. Even if they are about Antz or Transformers, they are just stand-ins for people. We know no other way to explore stories but in terms of the rhythms of human life. Dan sets these rhythms under three headings:

• Biology
• Psychology
• Society

In the racoons example we looked at biology: A biological, real-life racoon became a storybook, not real racoon – Dan could have picked living racoons vs dead racoons for a more gruesome zombie plot.

We also looked at psychology: a dishonest racoon becomes an honest one. We could have reversed those semicircles thus; an honest racoon becomes dishonest. What if a psychologically honest racoon died, and moved into the world of the zombie racoons, learned to survive using dishonest means, and succeeded in becoming the King of the Zombie Racoons, before returning to the land of the living to terrorise his old neighbourhood? Well what indeed!

Does ‘terrorising his neighbourhood’ smell like another dichotomy? Living in peace with his neighbours changes to terrorising them? It does, right? Perhpas it’s the rhythm of society, and if that’s a dichotomy that speaks to you more than the whole honest / dishonest business, go for it.

It doesn’t really matter which dichotomies you choose, this is just a brainstorming method. The point is to get your creative juices flowing. Any system that helps you develop ideas from crap to great (dichotomy!) from vague to specific (dichotomy!) is a good system. I particularly like this method as it encourages you to see the story from start to finish. You are not obligated to stick to that start or to that finish; once you get writing it can all change, but having at least a notion of the shape of your story sets you off well to push through to the end, during the dark days you might otherwise wallow hopelessly in the middle.

I will return to my analysis of animated Netflix series ‘Over the Garden Wall’. Meanwhile check out my earlier posts about this 8 step system.

Confession

Confession: I’m a terrible self critical writer. My inner editor sent me back to the beginning of my story and I went meekly. I’m told to press on, but I can’t. I think my inner editor has a great point: Flaws in early scenes disable the story later on. I have to fix the beginning to break through the 27000 word roadblock.

I blame my protagonist: she was spineless. Exciting things happened to her. Other, more motivated or decisive characters pushed her into the way of adventure, but she didn’t have the courage to make plot-shaking decisions of her own.

Her spinelessness is a natural consequence of my seat-of-the-pants writing style. I don’t know what’s coming next and rely on other characters and events to lead the way, to show me where the story is going.

That was great, and got me into the heart of the story world, exposed key themes and produced compelling characters. But now I have reached the point where my protagonist needs to take charge, to make risky decisions… or else just go home, return to the status quo having declined to choose a riskier, more adventurous path. Yawn…

Time for a protagonist make-over.

I’m giving her more willpower, more courage, and when I rewrite my way back to the 27000 word mark I expect this gumption-upgrade will carry my protagonist and her story past it’s 27000 word roadblock.