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How to Find Story Ideas In TV Listings
By Deb Gallardo
One of the fastest ways to find story ideas is to use television listings from your newspaper, cable guide or TV magazine.
What we’re looking for are the short synopses that describe featured TV episodes and films. These descriptions will provide you a virtually unending supply of story ideas.
Step one is to list a minimum of 10 synopses. For ease of manipulation, I recommend using your word processing program. Leave out character names, identifying information and specific plot details. The synopsis below is for an animated TV series. I left blank the names, as well as two other words in the last sentence. We’ll get to why I did that in a bit.
The ______s are sucked into a deadly game of winner take all. Tricked into thinking a competition is a fair fight, _____, _____ and ____ go up against ____, ____ and ____. When the losers are ____ed by ____, the only one left standing is ____.
Sometimes we need to rewrite a synopsis until we can make it generic, as in this example:
The new kid at school is challenged by a bully to _______ (#)___ ______s in one day.
The original story was to “eat 10 hotdogs” in one day. Do you see that by blanking out those details we have made this storyline generic?
Now here are synopses for 10 more stories. See which ones you recognize.
1. Loving father must come to terms with his daughter’s engagement in order to throw her a wedding that won’t bankrupt him.
2. Two bumbling swindlers stumble upon the map to ______. After a disaster at sea, the two wash up on the shore of_______.
3. A middle-school student wishes Labor Day would never end, so he won’t have to go to school, but he’s stuck reliving the same day over and over.
4. Two friends both impersonate a non-existent brother, one to woo a lady in the city, the other to get close to his friend’s young ward in the country, but confusion ensues when they all end up in the same place.
5. Cosmic radiation grants four people extraordinary powers.
6. Psychopath stalks teens in small town.
7. Nun befriends death row inmate during his final days.
8. Wall street whiz invents non-existent male partner, to bag clients.
9. Corporate raider hires hooker to act as business escort.
10. Former baseball player coaches misfit Little League team.
You may recognize Father of the Bride, Road to El Dorado, The Importance of Being Earnest, Pretty Woman and The Bad News Bears. The others you may not have a clue about. (We’re in the same boat.) As a matter of fact, it’s easier to do this if we don’t recognize the story.
How we manipulate these descriptions is where my story idea “magic” comes in. By changing the who and the what, we can create dozens of story ideas.
Who What
Loving father ………………………….must come to terms with _____________
Two bumbling swindlers ………………stumble upon a ______
A middle-school student………………wishes _________ would never end…
Two friends …………………………….impersonate ____________
Cosmic radiation………………………..grants ______________ / is granted______
Psychopath……………………………..stalks ____________
Nun……………………………………….befriends _____________
Wall street whiz………………………..invents non-existent ____________
Corporate raider………………………..hires ___________ to __________
Former baseball player…………………coaches __________
Now we mix things up a bit.
Loving father……………………………befriends lonely boy during a single parents’ retreat.
Two bumbling swindlers………………..impersonate reclusive maiden aunts in order to steal
……………………………………………their inheritance, but confusion ensues when the real
……………………………………………aunts show up.
Middle school student …………………coaches t-ball team as community service for school
……………………………………………vandalism conviction.
Two friends ……………………………..stumble upon a closely-guarded government secret
……………………………………………and soon everyone is pursuing them.
Cosmic radiation ………………………..stalks astronauts in training.
Psychopath ……………………………..wishes the killing would never end, but instead
……………………………………………becomes stuck reliving one of his “sane” days
……………………………………………over and over.
Nun………………………………………..hires expert marksman to teach her how to shoot to kill.
Wall Street whiz…………………………is granted extraordinary powers to avoid a global
…………………………………………….economic disaster that will have repercussions
…………………………………………….outside the solar system.
Corporate raider………………………….must come to terms with the damage he has done
…………………………………………….to people’s lives, in order to redeem himself and
…………………………………………….marry the woman he has fallen in love with.
Former baseball player…………………..invents non-existent mascot supposedly responsible
……………………………………………..for his success, in order to win publicity for his
……………………………………………..struggling business.
You could substitute each “who” into every scenario, making adjustments as needed, to create up to 80 more story ideas without major changes. If you made more drastic alterations, the sky’s the limit.
Have fun with this!
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- Story Ideas from Family Photos and Upon Reflection
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- Story Ideas – Thanks for the Memories…
- Story Ideas – Beyond Bloom’s Taxonomy
1 Comment »
June 13th, 2008 at 12:12 am
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