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Story Ideas – Use Scenario Snippets for Inspiration
By Deb Gallardo
I found this little contest at the Murder She Writes blog (Ya gotta love this site’s name!) too late for us to participate for the drawing of author Allison Brennan’s books, but it’s a great exercise. I encourage you to try your hand at it, just to prime your writer’s pump. Then check out the responses she got from her readers. The diversity of story ideas from the same sources just proves why a story idea isn’t copyright-able.
Each set of eyes and the labyrinthine pathways of each writer’s mind are unique. They act like a series of filters, so that from the time the original thought enters the filtering system until the moment it emerges at the end of the process, an unreproducible product is formed. Okay, so maybe that’s a little verbose. The trouble is, I don’t have enough time to fix it. Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said he didn’t have time to write short?
My verbosity notwithstanding, just have fun with this. Then DO go read the character sketches, plot snippets, etc. in her readers’ comments. Some of them I’d buy and read in a heartbeat.
Says Allison:
Here are snippets from three recent news articles. You can use all or parts of them in your scenario, and let your imagination take over. Maybe a word will send you off in a completely different direction from the obvious. But don’t over think it. What you’re trying to do is see or read something to spark an idea or premise or character personality. It doesn’t even have to be complete. You may have just an idea of a character (hero, villain, victim, whoever) or a premise or a snippet of a plot, or a scene pictured vividly in your head. You may even think of some dialogue. You’re not graded! So have fun 
* Two people dead in suspected gang-related violence. * St. Xavier evacuated everyone from its Chicago and Orland Park campuses from Friday until Wednesday after graffiti–with the words
“Be Prepared To Die On 4/14”–was found on the wall of a restroom in the Regina Hall dormitory, threatening violence on April 14. The threat also shut down four schools near the university. *
“You can’t really trust anybody no matter if they’re in power because people in power abuse their power.”
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