Q: I'm having difficulty coming up with a plot for a fiction story in the mystery/suspense genre. I've tried beginning with the character and a seed of an idea and see where it goes. I've tried beginning with the seed of an idea and developing it in a timeline, but as I worked and worked on it, I lost interest in the story and felt depleted of any creative inspiration or passion for the story or the characters I began developing.
I've been writing for well over ten years, have taken classes, have participated in creative exercises, have studied and practiced most of the components of "good fiction"--i.e., plotting, character development,
pacing, etc.--yet I still feel like a talent-less hack. I know I'm not, really, but why is it I just can't come up with a good story?
I read a quote last year that stuck with me: "Avoid spending a lot of time coming up with a perfect idea that no one else has come up with before. There are no unique ideas--the uniqueness comes from your writing and approach." I understand and agree with that philosophy, yet it seems beyond me to even come up with ANY idea, unique or not.
Do you have any words of advice or suggestions that might help me head in a direction that will get me past this block or lack of confidence or whininess (probably all three)?
A: What a tall order! I’m having the same issues with a children’s book I’m supposed to write that uses a line of dolls that have already been created. I’ve been given the characters (the dolls) and must make up mystery stories that involve them. As an old nonfiction writer, I create a chapter-by-chapter outline, first. True, I hated outlines when I was in school, but they actually help me write fiction, so I can be sure that every chapter will have mystery, suspense, action, tension, and conflict. It’s easier for me to start with
an outline and manipulate it all I want before I begin the actual writing.
One of the earliest lessons I learned about fiction writing has to do with where to begin the story: Start in the middle of things. Susan Graham, the literary agent who owns About Words Agency, says it even better: Start when things go wrong. As a cliché, think of it as the missionaries in a pot of boiling water surrounded by cannibals. How will the missionaries get out? Will they get out? Later we can find out how they got there, but when the story opens, readers want to see drama, trauma, conflict, and tension.
How do you keep up the suspense and tension? Think “What if.” What if the missionaries stepped out of the boiling water and into the fire? What if one escaped and ran into the arms of the hungriest cannibal in the pack? What if one helped the other escape and raised the ire of the leader of the pack?
What if, what if…keep applying that theory throughout the story. Find ways to crank up the tension and conflict at every turn. Look for “what if” situations that can happen to the characters and among them. What if Character A falls in love with Character B? What if Character B is married to Character C? What if Character C has a history of mental illness? What if the doctor who treated Character C … who knows? Those emotional elements can be figured out in an outline as well as where the actual story goes.
An outline is merely a guide, though. It helps you set the original premise, which in fiction must almost always be that the main character wants something really badly, and something or someone must get in the way to thwart that main character and make the mission difficult. In the case of the missionaries, they wanted to save the souls of the natives. The natives, however, obviously had a different set of motives; they wanted to savor the soles of the missionaries’ feet! See how you must have characters with different goals, motives and wants?
Next you want to turn up the volume on the suspense and tension, usually with all the things that get in the way of what the main character wants. Once you begin writing based on your outline, your characters may take you places you never expected, and if those places crank up the tension and suspense, let the characters lead the way.
If have tried every technique you can and still cannot come up with a viable fiction story, do not give up on writing. No one says fiction is the only creative writing in the world. Nonfiction can be equally creative, plus nonfiction sells even better than fiction. Find a subject that interests you and write about it. If you prefer not to research subjects, you can simply tell your personal experiences, and if you write them well enough, you can sell them as fillers and as submissions to collections such as the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and the Cup of Comfort series.
