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Anatomy of an Idea

MEMENTO NORA (the novel) started out as a short story I wrote for Odyssey Magazine.  You can read “Memento Nora,” the short story here.  In nutshell, though, the story is about 14-year-old Nora James  going to her first Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic (TFC) to have a memory erased.

Where did the idea come from? My “formula” for this germ of a story was:

OBSESSION + CONSTRAINTS + RESEARCH + WHIM = THIS IDEA

  1. OBSESSION.  I’ve always been fascinated with memory. I’m not sure why, but it was one of those things that grabbed my interest and led to me read about many, many aspects—from the guy who lost his short-term memory because of a railroad spike through his brain (he lived) to studies about aboriginal children having better eidetic memories. So, the topic was something that was already percolating in my brain when I saw the Odyssey theme list.
  2. CONSTRAINTS.  I did write this story for a particular magazine. Odyssey is a tween/teen science magazine that features one short story per issue. Each issue is themed. Obviously, this particular issue was about memory. The guidelines gave a few story ideas, but none were about frozen-yogurt style shops that erase memory. Oh, the story word count had to be under 1000 words.  So the story had to be about memory, for a YA/MG audience, and short.
  3. RESEARCH. So, I set off looking for something within the topic of memory that really grabbed me. It didn’t take long. I ran across an article or two about experimental Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) treatments. The scientists were investigating the use of a common blood pressure medication to lessen the grip of traumatic memories.
  4. WHIM.  What if this treatment could be dispensed as easily as buying a frozen yogurt or a latte? It could be a franchise—like TCBY. (Hence the TFC name.)

At this point, I had the idea—but not the story.  That’s when I start asking myself the hard questions. What kind of society would have TFC’s on every corner? Why would people go? Why wouldn’t they? What would happen if they stopped going? Who would be the least likely hero/heroine?  And so on.

See? This is the hard part—taking your glimmer of an idea to an actual working story.

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How to make up stuff for a living

I do often get asked where I get my ideas. (And sometimes the tone implies a certain concern for the inner workings of my brain.)  I love Neil Gaiman’s take on the question. He’s tried the flippant answers: Idea of the Month club. A corner shop. Pete Atkins.  Now, he just tells people the truth:

‘I make them up,’ I tell them. ‘Out of my head.’

What most people want to know, though, is how to do that.  Every writer has a different way of coming up with ideas. Actually, the idea isn’t the hard part; it’s developing the ideas into a story that’s killer. (An idea isn’t the same thing as a story, but that’s another post.) Here’s what works for me.

  1. Be curious.  Ideas come from being fascinated with something, exploring it, and asking a lot of questions. Observe. Obsess. Absorb.
  2. Read.  Magazines. Books. Web sites. Whatever interests you.  Even watch TV (gasp).
  3. Keep an idea file. Tear out pages of magazines, and/or print out articles. Write them in a notebook. Bookmark things. (Read it Later is a great plug-in for Firefox .) Don’t limit yourself to ideas, per se.  Collect characters and settings, if that’s what inspires you. (I do a little of both.)
  4. Cull from your own life.  What’s fascinated or pissed you off in your life? Did you have a traumatic incident in your childhood? What was your family like?
  5. Put ideas together. Sometimes you’ll have an interesting idea but no story to go with it. If you combine it with another idea or a character or life incident, you might get an amazing story from it.
  6. Trust your own instincts. For me, a good idea resonates somewhere in me. I get that feeling.  That oh-this-is-good feeling when the idea is right. I have rarely gotten that feeling from an idea someone else has come up with and offered to me (thinking they’ve done the hard work).
  7. Use limitations and restrictions to your advantage.  This is going to sound counter to what I just said above, but sometimes a theme or word limit can really spark your creativity.

Sorry, couldn’t think of 10. 😉  In the next post, I’ll break down a short story of mine and share how I came up with the ideas behind it. 

In the mean time, though, how do you come up with your ideas?

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The Girl U Want – Tank Girl Original Ending

I was doing a little research for next week’s League blog and ran across the original ending to one of my favorite cult-classics, TANK GIRL (1995). TANK GIRL, the movie, is loosely based on the UK comic. (The comic creators, who had very little control over the movie, hated the film.)

Here’s the Amazon blurb for the movie:

The Year is 2033. Earth has been clobbered with a comet, civilization has been destroyed, and it hasn’t rained in 11 years. Nearly all the water on the planet is controlled by the evil Water and Power company, which is in turn controlled by the even more evil Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell). Who stands in the way? Some mysterious mutants called the Rippers and, of course, Tank Girl. Lori Petty plays Tank Girl, the wisecracking, defiant heart of the movie, as kind of an inner child gone wild. Unfortunately Petty can’t quite carry a movie on her own–her zingers frequently fall flat and she seems to be continually worried that we still like her. Luckily there’s Naomi Watts as Jet Girl to save the day: smart, shy, and inherently way more appealing than Tank Girl. Tank Girl is based on the comic of the same name, and it is visually an eye-popper. It’s worth watching for the insane set and costume designs alone.

The released version of the movie has an animated ending.

Here’s the original ending:

If you’re familiar with the movie, you’ll notice that a lot of things–like Sub Girl–must have been taken out.

btw, Girl U Want by Devo is the opening theme song for TANK GIRL. In case you were wondering about the post title!

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