Ideas, Demons & Trench Coat-Wearing Potatoes

People often ask writers, “Where do you get ideas?” But the truth is, that’s a pretty hard question. Mainly because there are hundreds and hundreds of answers, not just one. Some of us get them from books or music. Some of us get them from people watching or reading the news. Some of us are just hiring crows to find them for us, or summoning a demon to think one up instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But here’s the thing: ideas don’t always come from another source, or pop into your head in a sudden burst of inspiration. Sometimes you have to make them come.

The question is, how do you do that?

It’s different for all writers, but for me it’s a 3-step process. I thought I’d explain it by creating a brand new idea tonight, right on this post. I have no clue what genre it’s going to be, who the characters are, what the conflict is…so there’ll be a lot of flailing. Possibly some mild screaming. But hopefully it helps you out.

And if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. I’ll rent you my demon for free.

Anyway, all set?

Let’s get started.

Step 1: The Protagonist

For every writer, the word ‘protagonist’ likely sparks a different image. Some of you might be thinking of a kid or teen. Some of you might be thinking of an adult. A few of you might have imagined three potatoes in a trench coat, or a swirling cloud of sentient mist. Anything goes, because this isn’t about physical appearances. This is about the deep stuff. In other words, the unpleasant or super-traumatic thing that makes your protagonist who they are. In writing world, this thing is called ‘a Ghost.’

Why? Because it’s haunted your protagonist since it happened, and it will continue to haunt them throughout the course of your story.

Some writers like to pull from their own life experience—giving their protagonist a Ghost they have themselves. But if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, here are a bunch of prompt words to inspire you:

I’m going to choose ‘neglect’ for this exercise, because I’ve never written a neglected protagonist. And I’m also going to make my protagonist a girl, because that’s what popped into my head. We’ll call her Nameless.

Now for some details. Who was Nameless neglected by? I can think of two options to choose between:

I flipped a coin (with ‘1’ being heads, and ‘2’ being tails) and got heads. So neglectful parents it is.  But why did they neglect her, that’s the question. So again, I’m going to make a list of options:

And here’s where some flailing comes in, because I’m really torn between 3 and 4. So out comes the coin again. And *flip* looks like we’re going with 3. And I’m going to make that sibling a brother, just for the heck of it.

So after having nothing five minutes ago, we now have an actual protagonist with an actual backstory. Nameless, who was neglected as a child because her parents favored her brother.

So now what?

Now we have to dig a bit deeper. We have to figure out what misconception about life, the world or herself that Ghost gave her. This misconception is known as ‘a Lie.’

A Lie can take all sorts of forms, but to me Nameless’s Lie seems obvious. If your parents liked your brother better, you might start believing that something was wrong with you, right? That you were broken in some way—or worse, utterly worthless.

And this probably makes her incredibly sad.

Or incredibly bitter.

Or possibly a bit of both.

She probably also wants to become someone important—or rather, someone with value—more than anything else in the world.

Which means she not only has a Ghost and a Lie, but also Issuses and a Desire. And if we know her Desire, we can move on to Step 2.

Step 2: The Plot Goal

A Plot Goal is a key element of all (or at least most?) stories, and it typically does one of two things:

• Conflicts with the desire
• Aligns with the desire

Unfortunately, there isn’t a secret trick for figuring out what exactly your character’s Plot Goal will be. So again, time for more prompt words:

The first word that jumped out at me was ‘find’. So Nameless is attempting to find something. That something could be:

I could make up oodles more options than this, if I really sat down and thought about it. But I actually find myself really drawn to 2. Because what if Nameless’s brother is the missing person? And what if Nameless feels that finding him would give her value?

Yeah! Can we go with that?

I think we’ll go with that. So let’s recap what we have so far:

Sounds kinda like an idea, right? But is it a great idea? Is it even a good idea?

To be honest *squints at idea suspiciously* it still seems a little bit dull to me, a little bit meh.

But hey, no worries! This is why Step 3 exists.

Step 3: Making Your Idea Less Meh

Up above, I said that ideas don’t always come from another source. But now that we’ve already got an idea, it’s time to turn to other sources to make it better.

Have you ever heard the term ‘steal like an artist?’ Some people are a wee bit frightened of it, because it sounds like you, the artist, are being encouraged to plagiarize another artist’s work to complete your own. But that’s not right at all. If you steal like an artist, it means you are studying *multiple* works of art, then taking elements of those works and remixing them (or transforming them!) to suit your needs.

Typically, the more stories you ‘steal’ from the better. But since I’m not actually writing this story, I’m only going to use three. Let’s go with Harry Potter, Hunger Games and Pride and Prejudice.

Here are my notes:

This idea just got way more interesting, in my opinion. A nineteenth-century muggle against a bunch of stabby wizards? I would totally read that. So let’s rewrite our idea again, with the new stuff included:

And VOILA. Much better, right? I mean, obviously there are still many things to work out. Why Nameless’s brother is missing, for example. Or what sort of magic he can do, who the antagonist is, etc. But we have something, that’s the important bit. When just 10 or 15 minutes ago, we didn’t have anything at all.

Anyway, now I’d really love to get your thoughts. How do you come up with ideas? If you tried my process, did it work? Was this post so long that you’ve now grown a Dumbledore-esque beard? Do you want to rent my demon?

Let me know in the comments! I really love hearing from you.