Transcription
What's up, my friend. Abbie here. And welcome back to WritersLife Wednesdays, where we come together to help you make your story matter and make your author dreams come true.
Today we're talking about what to write about when you have no ideas and no inspiration, and why writing prompts don't help and they don't work. Why? Because they're missing a very important element of story. If you know me, you know what it is. Internal conflict.
So if you're looking for story ideas, and you're googling around or scrolling through Pinterest trying to find ideas, trying to find some sort of inspiration, and you're looking at writing prompts and none of these writing prompts are working for you. Maybe you try writing through a writing prompt, and then it falls flat and it falls apart. And you're like, "Why is this not working? "Do I just suck at writing? "Can I just, like, not do this? "Other writers can do this. "How come I can't do this?" It's not you. It's the lack of internal conflict. (chuckles)
Same goes for those little exercises where you mix and match different features to create a character. What is the one thing that they never ask you to figure out about your character? Their internal conflict. What matters to them? We don't know. So we don't care. And we can't write about something who we don't care about.
Some writing prompts are good ideas. Don't get me wrong. But they're out of context. They're an external event that I don't have any prior emotional connection to. So if I don't care about it, how will my reader care about it?
So if writing prompts don't work for you, but you need to write something, you want to write something, you want ideas and inspiration, in this video I'm going to share with you a great method for coming up with story ideas when you have no ideas and no inspiration by drawing inspiration from stories that get you really excited, creating a story that is unique and memorable and matters to you. Roll that intro. And let's get started.
Why does your story matter? (rhythmic music) Good question. What if I told you that there's a science behind every great story? I don't just teach you how to write. I teach you how to change the world with your story and make your author dreams come true. (sneaky music)
Wilson Mizner once said, "If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism. "If you steal from many, it's research." All ideas are stolen. Even ones that seem original. Coming up with a story idea that's all your own really just consists of gathering bits and pieces of other stories and remixing them into your own arrangement to create your own story. It's kind of like creating your own recipe. You don't just start throwing things together and hope for the best. You take inspiration from other recipes. You combine things. You take parts and pieces, mix them together. You create your own arrangement. And that now becomes the unique thing that you created. But you didn't start from nothing.
So this exercise that I'm about to show you is not so much about stealing. Don't think of it as stealing. Think of it as drawing inspiration from other sources. There are really only, like, a few stories. And they all just get retold in different ways. Every great writer draws inspiration from other stories. And in a minute, I'm gonna show you some examples of this. But for now, I want to show you the method for coming up with unique ideas using stories that matter to you so that you can write a story that matters too. Rhyme.
Okay, first step is to make a list of the top four favorite stories that you've read or watched recently that got you really excited and creatively inspired. It doesn't have to be just four. You could make a giant master list of these. In fact, I recommend doing that. But you have to come up with at least four, okay? And they can be old favorites, but try to choose ones that still get you excited and creatively inspired.
Okay, once you have that list of stories, we're gonna make another list of the four elements of story, genre, plot, characters, and theme. Now you're going to choose one story for each of those categories and ask yourself, "What is my favorite aspect of this story? "Do I love the characters, the genre, the plot, the theme?" And maybe you love all of those things about it, but try to choose what is the thing that stands out the most to me about this story that I'm like, "Oh, I love the plot. "Oh, I love those characters "and their relationships with each other."
So going deeper into these categories. When I say characters, I'm talking about personality and relationships. When I say theme, I'm talking about the big idea, the overarching message behind what the characters learn in their transformative journey. And when I say plot, I'm talking about the irresistible premise, the hook, the setup for all of the external events. And when I say genre, I'm talking about setting, time period, and the general vibe of the story.
If you're writing a short story, not something as long as a novel or a series or something like that, you can do this exercise. Just choose your four favorite scenes instead of stories. So you're looking more at a smaller scope. You're looking at a single event or a day or something happening in a short period of time. So your four favorite scenes that you have recently watched or read, what did you love about them? Figure it out. Then go to your list of the four story elements. Genre, plot, characters, and theme. Choose what goes where.
"But wait, Abbie, isn't this like just making a retelling "of a story that already exists?" Not quite. See, with most retellings, there are only two things that change. We're taking the same plot. We're taking the same characters. We're taking their relationship, their internal conflict, the theme. We're taking basically everything about it, and we're just changing the genre or the time period. That's, like, literally the only thing that happens with a retelling, usually. A lot of times an author will add their own flair to the story and maybe add some subplots or something like that. But they generally take the same story, the same plot, characters, and theme, and they just dress it in a different setting, a different tone, a different time period. That's not really what we're doing here. I'm not telling you to write retellings of stories. I'm telling you to find the things about your favorite stories that gets you really excited and inspired and extract those small elements from those stories and rearrange them to create your own unique thing.
Do writers really do this? Yeah, actually they do. Here are some examples. The "Twilight" series is inspired by a bunch of classics, including "Pride and Prejudice." While you're reading "Twilight," are you thinking, "Wow, this is like literally 'Pride and Prejudice.' "I can't believe she just stole 'Pride and Prejudice.' "I feel like I'm reading 'Pride and Prejudice.'" (chuckles) No. You don't think that at all. It's unrecognizable. Because she changed the whole genre and made it her own thing. And how many books do you think are inspired by "Twilight" now? And so it goes on.
Some other examples. "The Hunger Games" was inspired by gladiators and televised challenges. "You've Got Mail" was inspired by the old film "The Shop Around the Corner," which is such a cute movie. And I didn't even know that until I saw that older movie, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh." Good shout-out though, making Meg Ryan's character own a store called The Shop Around The Corner. See that's a respectful nod to stealing from another artist. (chuckles) "The Lunar Chronicles" are fairytale retellings meets science fiction. And "The Lion King" is basically "Hamlet." (chuckles)
In other words, everything has been done before and every writer steals from every other writer. So what are you waiting for? In his book "Steal Like An Artist," Austin Kleon says, "In the end, "merely imitating your heroes is not flattering them. "Transforming their work into something of your own "is how you flatter them. "Adding something to the world that only you can add." That's what I'm talking about with the unique arrangement, your own remix of the things you love about your favorite stories.
So make a master list of your favorite stories that get you the most excited and creatively inspired, and then make that list of the four story elements, characters, genre, plot, and theme, and start mixing things up. And if you're still like, "How do I do that exactly?" (chuckles) Let me show you an example.
So I've started making a master list of some of my favorite stories. Genre. Um. Oh gosh. There's so many to choose from. So many I love. I'm gonna choose the genre of "Downton Abbey." So like early 1900s, posh English society. Plot, let's take something I've seen recently. I'm gonna take the plot of "Sabrina." Such a cute movie. Love that premise. And the characters. Let's take the characters from one of my favorites, "Poldark." If you guys haven't seen "Poldark," you're missing out. (chuckles) Okay. For the theme, you're gonna wanna take something that works with these different elements, especially with the plot. So as we always talk about on this channel, the external conflict and the internal conflict and the journey that your character goes on leads them to their aha moment, leads them to the big idea. So the big idea is kinda the thing that you have to come up with first and reverse-engineer how they're gonna arrive at this big idea. So you're gonna wanna pick a theme that complements the plot and the characters. You don't want something way, way off. Okay? So kinda just use your common sense here. Pick a theme from your list here that matches or could match with your characters. It can even cross over a little bit because a lot of themes repeat across different stories. And it's the way that the story presents that theme that makes it unique. So I'm gonna take the same theme as in "Sabrina," which is kind of that love is the most important thing. It's more important than business and class division and age and all of that. (blender whirring) (lively music) (keys clicking)
Okay, so now we have a good concept, a concept that I can get excited about because I love "Downton Abbey" and "Sabrina" and "Poldark." I love all these stories. They're great. And I can take these different elements and remix them to be something unique. Let's do another one. Something kinda different. Darker and more mysterious.
Genre, genre, genre. What do I want for me genre? I just recently read the "Shadow and Bone" trilogy. I really liked that genre. (chuckling) I didn't think I was gonna like that genre. But I really like it, okay? So we'll go with that. We'll go with like a World War I fantasy Tsarpunk. And for the plot. Oh, gosh. Y'all know I love "Tangled." Let's use the plot of "Tangled." And for the characters, let's use the characters from "Jane Eyre." Because it's old favorite, and it still gets me inspired. Now, theme. I want something that is not too different from "Tangled." So this was gonna be more dark and mysterious. So I don't want it to be too much of a happy Disney princess theme. "Tangled" does deal with emotional manipulation themes. So I'm gonna take the theme of "Gaslight," which is one of my favorite old films. Also missing out if you haven't seen that. Ingrid Bergman. Ah, so good. "Gaslight." Because it's going to cover some themes of emotional manipulation. (blender whirring) (lively music) (keys clicking)
Let's do one more. Something kinda fun and adventurous. Genre. (hands rubbing) What do we want for our genre? Maybe something totally different. Sci-fi. "Star Wars." And plot. Plot, plot, plot. Let's take another Disney movie. Those always have good plots. Let's do the plot of "Mulan." The original film, that is. The new one sucked. Characters. Ah. (sighing) You guys are wondering why I haven't talked about "Pride and Prejudice" yet. Let's do "Pride and Prejudice" for the characters. You know, I love these characters more than most people in real life. And theme. Okay, we want this to be kind of inspirational. So let's remix within the remix. I'm gonna take a combination here of the theme from "Mulan" and the theme from "Pride and Prejudice." Because they're kinda similar. I was looking up the theme of "Mulan," and this is the first thing that came up. It's something that the co-director said. "A girl who can't help who she is, "but she exists in a different society "that tells her who she's supposed to be." That kinda sounds like Lizzie Bennet, doesn't it? I mean. That's gonna be the broad overarching theme. A lot of stories have done it. This make-believe story (chuckles) is gonna do it. But it's gonna be a space adventure like "Star Wars." (blender whirring) (lively music) (keys clicking)
Ah, I literally just came up with that in two minutes. And I know it needs more detail. But this is something that you can get excited about. Because you can take stories that matter to you personally, that you have prior emotional connections with, okay? Like I talked about in the beginning, that's why writing prompts don't work. 'Cause you don't care. They're out of context. Who cares? You don't. How will your readers care? Your excitement, your passion for these elements of story will come through your writing. That is going to be what shines through your writing because you have passion for this. It matters to you.
So try this exercise. Instead of telling you what to write, it's going to get your creative juices flowing and help you to come up with your own unique story idea that you can get excited about because it personally means something to you. Because it is inspired by stories that you love the most. But you're not stealing from those stories. You're not plagiarizing those stories. You're remixing different elements of those stories to create your own thing for the world. Something that the world has never seen before.
So, boom, that's it. That's the method. It's better than writing prompts. Try it. I'm really excited to see what you guys come up with. So if you wanna share, comment below and tell me all about the amazing story smoothie that you create with this writing method. Smash that like button if you liked this video. And be sure to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already because I post writing videos every single Wednesday. And I would love to have you here in the community.
Also be sure to check my Patreon because that's where we go beyond videos and take storytelling to the next level. The Patreon community's not only the best way to support what I'm doing here on YouTube, but it's also the only way to connect one-on-one with me and get better guidance and advice on your story. So go to patreon.com/AbbieEmmons and check out all the awesome exclusive content I have over there for you. Until next week, my friend, rock on. Shhhh-woop. (camera beeps)
So this exercise I'm about to show you is all about stealing. (chuckles) That sounds so horrible. (laughs) (camera beeps) It's like a story smoothie. I should call it that. Like, story smoothie template. (laughs) Okay. Let's make a story smoothie.