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So you’ve found some inkling of uniqueness and brought your self respect back from the brink, eh? Good for you! Now, what do you want, a frickin’ party with balloons and cakes jumping out of strippers?! Let’s get back to work. You need to develop the idea. Now what I do, and I’m not saying you should copy me, but I have been praised for, if anything, my unique and brilliant ideas, is this: I ask the question ‘why?’.

Why does this idea come about in this fantastic world you have created? Why is there a vampire who goes out in the sunlight? What happened to give him this love or this urge? To use another example, say you had come up with the awesome idea of a cat with an inferiority complex, because, let’s face it, no such paradox has existed. Why does the cat have an inferiority complex? Perhaps it was the victim of a brutal mouse gang beating when it was tiny, or maybe it is someone more human in a cat’s body. Either of these points give you some great character background and possible plot points.

From these initial sparks of ideas I usually get some inkling of what I am trying to say. What is my message? Strange occurrences such as these examples give rise to the opportunity for many wonderful happenings. These help drive the story. Maybe the vampire who craves sunlight goes out in his heavily protective gear and bumps into a news reporter who was just about to expose vampires to the humans, but our hero is now able to stop them. In doing so he unwittingly becomes a true hero and poster boy for his people. You could easily write a story about fitting in and fame and popularity from that. Our shy kitty cat might make friends with the rodents and be outcast by his species or gain their trust to fight against the dogs.

Can you see how each idea is part of a chain of ideas that grows bigger and bigger or do I have to have the information into your brain? Brainstorm charts and mind maps are an excellent way to quickly record and develop these ideas. 

We’re even starting to get plot points, we have the initial idea and how it came about. So next is, where is it going? What will the conclusion be? Once we know that we can make an outline for the plot. Will the shy kitty go from obscurity and neuroses to fame and confidence? Will the vampire go from outcast to masked hero or will his daylight addiction get the better of him? 

So map your ideas. Each one gives birth to new ideas: new events, new characters to make them happen, places you want to use… Write it all down. And try not to lose it before I come back again next week and help you finish your plan. Alright, man?

(Source: mattcannotwrite.co.uk)

Last time we were dancing around the mulberry brush sprinkling kerosene on it and waving a match near its imaginary face… for science! No, it was to see if we could make plant life a little less lazy and more pro-active. No, wait, that was my date…. In my blog, we were discussing finding and developing unique ideas. We surmised, or rather, I told you, young grasshopper, that the first thing I do with an idea is to ask what is unique about it.

Today, I want to give you a comforting shot of liquid tranquilizer through this fireman’s house inserted up your rectum, and then I’m going to tell you something comforting. The rectum bit was just for fun, to see how you would react. It wasn’t necessary at all. That’s not the comforting thing. I’d imagine that got you worrying about all sorts of things, least being your bloody prolapsed anus (really, you should see a doctor). The comforting thing is that if you can’t find anything unique, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea and that you are a bad person. Though you probably won’t be able to wear a white gown of innocence any time soon. Actually, you probably shouldn’t wear any white with your backside bleeding like that. Well, I say bleeding, more like ‘gushing’ really.

No, your idea isn’t necessarily a waste of your pathetically short, painful existence. It’s just, like a soldier with a bag full of grenades and a missing pin, we’re going to have to dig around a bit more… and rather quickly.

Maybe you’re tired. Maybe you’ve had a bad day. Maybe you are just that stupid. You’ve come up with a boring idea that’s been done to death. We can still save it. Let’s take vampires as a starter point. Oh no! Vampires have been done to death and they’ve come back again - quite literally! But maybe your heart is really set on writing a vampire story. So we have to dig around. You need to find a unique angle. Think about what everyone knows and automatically assumes about vampires (e.g. they drink blood, hate sunlight, etc.). Hell, make a list if it satisfies your organizational inner geek. Now you have two paths to choose from and follow. Unlike most paths you can try and follow both of these without having some serious spatial problems. 

First of all, you can take this list and turn it on its head. You’re probably staring at a piece of paper with some upside down words on it now, aren’t you? Dufus! But I didn’t mean physically, I meant conceptually. Turn the ideas on their heads. What if you wrote about a vampire that was vegetarian and hated blood? What if you wrote about a vampire that loved the sunlight and went out in it as often as he could. What kind of precautions would he take to avoid death? What would he look like? What might he encounter out there and how might he (or they) react? Oh my god! We are getting close to developing plot points and an actual story concept!

The second path is a little more vague. If it were a path in a forest it would be partially covered by long grass and tree roots. It would be hiding a few skeletons and certainly some lost treasure too. Basically, you can look at that list and see what has been left out. Vampires like blood and hate sunlight right? So what about vampires that crave vodka and hate mimes? What about vampires who sparkle in sunlight? What kind of world would they live in? Oh my God! What kind of nightmare world would they live in?! A twisted world where plain girls with no personality, one expression and the moral fibre of a gym sock are considered hot babes no doubt.

Hey, I said the exercise would give you ideas, not GOOD ideas. Like any process it has it’s flaws. Still, a crap idea can earn you millions. In case you haven’t figured it out, I just described Twilight.

(Source: mattcannotwrite.co.uk)

I’ve been reading many more blogs lately. Among the best are those by Jeff Goins and Ava Jae. Of course I haven’t read everything, but I like these. Jeff is more motivational, but he provides grounds for the techniques to develop you as a writer, while Ava provides a little more technical knowledge of the trade. I reckon the only thing missing, and to make a triangle of awesome is to look at developing ideas. So over the next few blogs I’m going to do that in more detail than usual. I mean, that’s what I’ve been doing anyway. I’m not just ranting for my health here. I’m trying to make you think and see things differently so you can write more interesting stories. There’s far too many about this chick who meets this guy but they can’t be together because of this poo hole, then they do anyway. Why not fall in love with a donkey, or a backwards anthropomorph from Neptune with a spontaneous implosion disease? Isn’t it an obvious progression? So let’s get going.

Some people ask me “Matt, why are your stories so crazy?” and I hurl five fish at them and complain about the average angle of decline in young men’s posture nowadays. Some people ask “why are your stories unique?” Those people I like a bit more. They are asking the right questions.

I like to think I write this blog to help other people have and develop ideas and not to distract me from the voices that melt out of the dark impossible screaming for my very fried turnip (no, I don’t know why inter-dimensional demons like turnip, but it keeps me awake at night). So here’s possibly my most important piece of advice, and how I begin writing my stories. 

The first, the very first thing I consider about the idea I have is: what makes it unique?That’s my starting point. It’s the root of my labour. So it is destined to grow and spread throughout my work and produce new coloured fruit that tastes like chocolate lemmings or something. If I can’t find anything fresh in my idea, no new approach, no antlered rodent, I dump it. Mostly this is intentional, sometimes I just grow bored of it. However, whichever way it happens, it is a good move.

Firstly, no one wants to read the same story over and over again, which is often why people complain about best selling authors 5 years down the line. I certainly don’t want to waste my time writing a story that has already been written. Most of all, I don’t want to be known for writing that kind of trash.

As I sift through my wardrobe (that is actually the hollowed out carcass of a pretend bantha) looking for my orange and green kilt and Darth Vader outfit, I some how doubt that  it will ever be a problem for me. 

(Source: mattcannotwrite.co.uk)