Welcome to Step 2: Crank the Idea Mill. In this article, I will show you an exercise to help you develop as many ideas as possible for your novels, short stories, and screenplays. I call it Cranking the Idea Mill.
Before we get into it, it’s vital that you understand something called a log line. In my experience, using loglines is the best way to put a little bit of flesh on a loose idea. A logline is a 1-sentence summary of a story. Here are a few examples: An adventure-seeking farm boy leaves his home planet to battle a totalitarian intergalactic dictator. An aging, organized crime boss bequeaths his power to his reluctant son. A crippled man turned voyeur attempts to solve a murder by watching his neighbor's activities through his apartment window.
Great loglines should have three parts, a character, a goal, and a conflict.
Logline Anatomy Part One: Character
When it comes to character, names are not important. Character, at its most base form, comes from personality and circumstances. The three characters in the above logline are a farm boy, an aging organized crime boss, and a crippled man. Each description casts a general idea of these characters’ circumstances.
An adventure-seeking farm boy is probably humble. He works with his hands. He might work the land and animals. However, the fact that he is adventure-seeking implies that he might not be content with his farmer life.
An aging organized crime boss is probably rich. He’s probably knocked off a few people and done many other terrible things. He probably has a warped set of ideals.
A crippled man turned voyeur is probably the curious type. He probably spends a lot of time with binoculars looking at his neighbors. He probably has a pretty good understanding of what makes people tick.
Logline Anatomy Part Two: Goal
Let us explore the second part of an effective logline’s anatomy: goal. All great stories are driven by the lofty goals of their lead characters. And so, your main character's goal must be encapsulated in your logline.
Here are the three examples.
An adventure-seeking farm boy leaves his home planet to battle an intergalactic dictator. This logline makes our farm boy’s goal clear. He doesn’t like being ruled by an iron fist. He wants to do what he can to take down the evil government that keeps his people in subjugation.
An aging , organized crime boss bequeaths his power to his reluctant son. Here we have a guy who is used to ruling over a lot of rough people. He is probably surrounded by his cronies and isn’t used to taking no for an answer. He wants to leave his legacy with his own flesh and blood. His goal is to bequeath his criminal empire to his son.
A crippled man, turned voyeur, attempts to solve a murder by watching his neighbor’s activities through his apartment window. Here we have a guy who can’t walk. He’s seen something suspicious out his window and thinks that a murder has gone down. His goal: solve it.
Logline Anatomy Part Three: Conflict
Now let’s look at the third element of an effective logline: conflict. It has been said that conflict is drama. Remove conflict and drama can no longer exist. You must, therefore, embed a hint of your story’s overall conflict into your logline.
Again, let’s explore our three examples.
An adventure-seeking farm boy leaves his home planet to battle an intergalactic dictator. We have a dominant force in the universe, a totalitarian government. The farm boy wants to go up against an evil dictator. A young farm boy with a wanderlust for adventure against an evil, space dictator? Yea, the conflict is clear. If you haven’t figured it out, this logline belongs to Star Wars.
An aging, organized crime boss bequeaths his power to his reluctant son. In this story, the crime boss wants to pass down his criminal empire to his son. But there is a conflict here; his son is reluctant to receive his father’s gift. The conflict in this story lies in the family. Dad wants son to be a criminal mastermind. Son wants nothing to do with his father’s diabolical legacy. If you haven’t figured it out, this logline belongs to The Godfather.
A crippled man, turned voyeur, attempts to solve a murder by watching his neighbor’s activities through his window. Here we have a guy who wants to solve a murder. But there is a catch, the guy can’t walk. He’s completely vulnerable. He’s watching from his window. He’s seeing all kinds of suspicious activity, but he can’t do anything about it. And if the murderer discovers his witness. Whoa, baby, the conflict ratchets up to a whole new level. If you haven’t figured it out, this logline belongs to Rear Window.
Crank the Idea Mill
Now that we have gone over the anatomy of a good logline, it’s time to start cranking your idea mill. You can pretty easily come up with several loglines. It’s easy. Just write down a 3-word or less character description. Remember, names aren’t important. For example, let’s say: an unfulfilled heir.
Now think about your character’s goal and insert it. Let’s say our unfulfilled heir leaves his rich family to join the carnival. He finds no absolution in merely being rich. He wants to explore the world. His goal: get away from the politics and obligations tied to his rich family and find himself by exploring the world.
Third, insert conflict. Let’s try this: A unfulfilled heir leaves his family to join the carnival, only to discover it is powered by supernatural forces. Where is the conflict? The heir just wanted to join a conflict. But he soon learns that he got more than he bargained for; the carnival is supernatural in origin. He must deal with supernatural forces, malevolent in origin of course.
There you go, we have whipped out a simple logline; it offers enough foundation to build a story.
Now for your assignment. Set a timer for one hour. Start the clock and write 10 loglines before the time runs out. At the end of an hour, you will have 10 ideas. Some might be stinkers. Some might be pretty good, but more fitting for short stories than novels. You might get one or two novel-worthy ideas. Look over your list, pick the one you like best, the one that rings for you. That is the idea you are going to turn into a novel as you continue to go through this blog series.
After you have finished the assignment, you are ready for the next article: Step 3: Theme and Treatment.
I plan to get you from zero to accomplished novelist as quickly as possible. All I ask is that you check out my podcast Terrifying Lies. Subscribe, listen, and share. If you are feeling extra generous, back the podcast with a .99 per month donation. That’s less than the cost of one McDonalds combo meal per year!
Happy writing.
Watch a Novel Grow in Realtime
Title:
Thornhill: Nicholas Noir’s Midnight Carnival and Sideshow
Logline:
An unfulfilled heir leaves his family to join the carnival, only to discover that it is powered by malevolent, supernatural forces.
