Great ideas, fast!

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  • Great ideas, fast!

    I have to generate a new story concept by Monday for class and my well is running a little dry.

    Who out there has some idea-generation tips, strategies or links for me?

    Thanks

  • #2
    Re: Great ideas, fast!

    Originally posted by henryswanson12 View Post
    I have to generate a new story concept by Monday for class and my well is running a little dry.

    Who out there has some idea-generation tips, strategies or links for me?

    Thanks
    10 second Google search. Good luck.

    http://www.timetravelreviews.com/plot_generator.html

    http://www.lifeformz.com/cgi-bin/idea/idea.fcgi

    it goes on...

    http://www.hillarydepiano.com/2010/0...block-a-laugh/

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    • #3
      Re: Great ideas, fast!

      OK, forget about links.

      How about some personally honed techniques that have worked for you.

      Thanks

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Great ideas, fast!

        Maybe you need these: http://www.amazon.com/Gamewright-318.../dp/B003EIK136

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Great ideas, fast!

          The only "great" ideas I've had in a hurry were from lucid dreams, but you can't really plan on those outside of not drinking and not doing drugs, or maybe coming down with some illness.

          I guess you could also read Google News or a "newspaper" and see if anything sparks your imagination...especially in the health and science section.

          Then find a controversial issue or recent development, figure out both sides of the argument, and then take one or two of those arguments to the nth degree in some interesting way and place it all in a special world.
          On Twitter @DeadManSkipping

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          • #6
            Re: Great ideas, fast!

            My personally honed technique is to not dismiss suggestions I've asked for. I also hear that some writers sit down at a keyboard, open a vein and bleed.

            But I'd suggest just reading the news first.
            Doug Johnson
            www.dojowrite.com

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            • #7
              Re: Great ideas, fast!

              I am currently working on my masters in creativity. You could try and idea box, http://www.mindwerx.com/mind-tools/5787/idea-box. Use the top row to enter categories, location, hero, villain, obstacle, etc. Then fill in each column, and then mix and match from each to see what ideas spark.

              I did this once and the ideas where different and original. Its a fun to do, i sometimes do it while attending meetings that are going nowhere. Give it a try, could do the whole thing in about fifteen minutes, experiment and see what happens

              Apparently a writer or producer for the lone ranger used this technique to come up with plotlines for the series.
              826dk

              ARTicles: Kick Your Creative A** Into Gear

              DK - Script Revolution

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              • #8
                Re: Great ideas, fast!

                http://www.theyfightcrime.org/

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                • #9
                  Re: Great ideas, fast!

                  Thanks for the suggestions. Much appreciated.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Great ideas, fast!

                    I find that the development of an idea and the writing comes easiest when it is something I know or have experienced (even tangentially) Not something I must research (though that may come later). I ruminate on what I find annoying, what challenges I face in everyday life, what problems I see in my social group/job/etc. And then I try to figure out what's at stake in those issues. Or how I'd like to fix them.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Great ideas, fast!

                      Is this a serious thread?

                      Just pretending to be a writer and logging into a writer's forum to ask for story ideas is enough for a few scenes. Then just ask, "What happens next and why?"

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                      • #12
                        Re: Great ideas, fast!

                        Or this one: http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/m...p?name=Logline

                        My favorite thus far:

                        Adolf Hitler grow(s) 50 times in size and go(es) on a destructive rampage and in the process learn(s) the true meaning of Christmas.

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                        • #13
                          Re: Great ideas, fast!

                          One of the random generators gave me this:

                          A kindergarten teacher discovers a terrible family secret during the worst snow storm in a century.

                          Which, with some fleshing out, I could actually see as a movie.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Great ideas, fast!

                            Think of commercial movies you like and see how you can plug something different into the plot to make it a new story. For example, Galaxy Quest was about actors on a Star Trek type show who were mistaken for real space heroes and captured by aliens, so they had to figure out how to save the real aliens and themselves in a real space battle.

                            How can you change that story into another type of person (not an actor on a TV show) who usually only pretends to do something but now gets into a situation where they have to do whatever IT is for real, and it's really difficult? That's a movie pattern I like. Find a movie you like where you see what the characters do, and see how you can make it similar but different.


                            You can't copy the story exactly. You can't steal the characters, but you can use the basic mechanics of a story with your own variations plugged in. You can change the genre, you can change the tone, change the age of the hero, the gender of the hero, the world of the story, the character flaw -- all kinds of things -- and create an idea that is different enough to work on its own, attract an audience of its own, and not seem like theft .

                            You can take a story in the public domain like a fairy tale and use the same characters but make it modern, or tell it from a different point of view. For instance, Wicked is the Wizard of Oz story from the POV of the witch.

                            Cinderella has become Cinder Fella and other variations over the years.

                            The newspaper is full of story ideas that can inspire you. Let news stories and magazine stories remind you of movies, or how you can fictionalize the news story into something that seems like something you would see in the movies.

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                            • #15
                              Re: Great ideas, fast!

                              Go meta. Story about a guy who needs a new story concept by Monday, but his best ideas come when he's not trying to think of one, so he spends the entire weekend trying to think about not thinking of one.

                              A screenwriter's Inception ("Indention?).
                              http://twitter.com/gregbrainos
                              http://www.facebook.com/greg.brainos

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