25 Flips on an Old Idea

By Clay August 5th, 2010, under Lists

We all want to make old ideas new again, right? But how? Fortunately for us, there’s a simple (and silly) technique you can use to get the ideas rolling. Take an old idea, and change one thing about it. Suddenly, you have a new idea! Take The Sisters Grimm, for instance. You start by changing that one thing (brothers become sisters), then you have a platform to work from, nurturing your own ideas and situations that expand away from the idea. With a little luck, you’ll have eventually wandered so far away from the original idea that you’ve created your own fresh, exciting story to tell.

A note on derivativeness: you have a responsibility to ensure you’re not ripping off the original idea. This list certainly is not an endorsement for plagiarism or embracing derivativeness as your road to riches and fame. I intend only to educate about the nature of creating fresh ideas. I believe every story has been told (there’s only two or so anyway), with only minor changes to the details.

The idea is to get you thinking about the relationships between story elements and how you can ripple new life into your work by plucking the invisible strings that holds it all together.  How derivative you allow this to be is entirely on you and your comfort level. But, if your intention is to become a professional writer, you need to stop right now and realize that this is not an endorsement for ripping off other people’s hard work. Again, we’re here to talk about how you can look at old ideas in a new way, and how this can lead to crafting your own spin on those same two (or so) stories.

Feel free to let your own reversals be as silly as you want. I can’t present this list without admitting to indulging my sillier side.

Like some of our other lists, this is a mix of ideas and situations. Some are bald, polar-opposites of well-known works. I wouldn’t recommend naming your story or manuscript exactly this, but instead treat the reversal as a seed for creating a new idea.

Be warned: this can be a tool for good, or a tool for evil.

25 Flips on an Old Idea

  1. The Mop in the Stone
  2. Little Green Riding Hood
  3. Mrs. Sandman
  4. Father Goose
  5. Insomniac Beauty
  6. Alice’s Adventures in Ordinary, Everyday Life
  7. Robocrook
  8. Librarians of Fortune
  9. Damsel in Comfort
  10. Werehumans
  11. The Murdered Butler
  12. Casualties of Peace
  13. The Little Old Man Who Lived in a Shoe
  14. The Leaving of the King
  15. The Horrible Wizard of Oz
  16. Apollo 31
  17. The Godson
  18. Juliet and Romeo
  19. The Sidekick’s Journey
  20. Diamonds are a Boy’s Best Friend
  21. The Great Indoors
  22. My Unfair Lady
  23. Earth Wars
  24. Battlefield Neptune
  25. Queen Kong
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25 Signs You’re Reading a Piece of Crap

By Clay August 4th, 2010, under Storycraft

There is a lot of crap out there. Consider this a brief field guide to identifying crap in some of its myriad forms.

Today’s a shorter list, but we’ve included examples. Enjoy.

25 Signs You’re Reading a Piece of Crap

  1. An unexpected moral bursts onto the page. “The villain was defeated. Don’t do drugs.”
  2. The story takes forever to get going. “Meanwhile, on page 114, the conflict is introduced.”
  3. The writing is unclear. “Happy people like being happy and would do nice things to be happier and share the happy.”
  4. The style is overly wordy. “Happy people like being happy and would do nice things to be happier and share the happy with people who aren’t having happy.”
  5. There’s an invincible, perfect character with a throwaway flaw. “John was good at what he did, never made mistakes, but he had trouble at love.”
  6. Passive voice. “Jimmy WAS going to the store. He WAS going to his best friend’s birthday party later. He WAS thirteen already.”
  7. Telling instead of showing. “Alex was angry. He was mad that his sister had forgotten his birthday party and had gone out the night before with her friends instead of helping put up party decorations.”
  8. Unnecessary extra characters. “Over in the corner, all alone and bothering no one, the mailman read his copy of Better Homes & Gardens.”
  9. Gratuitous punctuation errors. “Donny was, happy. He–loved; going to DisneyLand.. Its the happiest of all place’s on Earth.”
  10. Subject-verb disagreements. “The cat or dog are causing a ruckus. Bob and Joan is angry about this.”
  11. Purple prose. “The grandiloquent vestiges of the clerical impersonator bore a genuine ecumenical pedigree.”
  12. The presence of informed attributes. “Christopher is a good writer.”
  13. Tonal disconnect. “The sky was bright and the sun was shining. Birds were chirping. The crisp morning air was sprinkled with the smell of dew. Dave resolved to fight–to die, for glorious honor in war. Wherever the little man was held down under the boot of evil, wherever children cry out for a hero, there would Dave be.”
  14. Shifting tense. “I was going to the park for lunch. A car is speeding down the road. I will be hit by the car.”
  15. Shifting perspective. “I rested on the park bench and enjoyed my lunch burrito. Back at the office, Dave feels angry about missing his lunch and wants to punch Bill when he gets back from eating his burrito at the park.”
  16. Author diatribes. “Alec frothed when he read the Facebook post. ‘Don’t you get it?’ he typed angrily. ‘Any idiot can see that the elected official is a moron, the truth speaks for itself!’”
  17. Adverb overkill. “Quietly, sneakily, Jim snuck into the room. Quickly, he sprinted into the shadows as the door closed behind him.”
  18. Strawmen. “‘Ah, but you see,’ Elliot started. ‘You’re incorrect about the current political landscape for the following citable and un-counterable reasons.”
  19. Cliches. “Spencer resolved to take it to the next level. Come hell or high water, by the end of the day, one would win, one would fall.”
  20. Overly-complicated plot. “Once we find the passkey, we’ll be able to get past the outer wall. But, we have to wait until the solstice blinds the optical readers and Bravo Team has bypassed the encryption at the Siberian outpost. If we’re able to then reroute the convoy, we’ll have a small window of opportunity to use crack the safe. Unfortunately, if the passcode is in ancient Sumerian, we may have to recruit my ex-girlfriend from college who I haven’t seen in sixteen years and lives on an oil rig.”
  21. It doesn’t end when it should. “I hugged my sister, and together we finally cried. Cried for our dog, who had been there for us, and for whom we could not be there anymore…The next day, I decided to go to the mall and clear my head.”
  22. Unresolved mysteries. “I always wondered what the deal was with the cuneiform written on the insides of the bank vault.”
  23. Overdone exposition. “We have to find the lost treasure of Abraham Lincoln, who you might remember was our nation’s sixteenth president, and liberator of the slaves from the South. He wore a stovetop pipe hat and was very tall. He was born in a log cabin and learned to read by candlelight…”
  24. Crappy, stilted dialogue. “‘Hello ex-wife!’”
  25. Unnecessary vulgarity. I’ll leave this one to your imagination.
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Writing in Cold Blood

By Clay August 3rd, 2010, under Storycraft

There’s nothing to match the thrill of having a hot idea–one that sets your blood on fire with anticipation and excitement. When that fire fills you, all you should want to do is get that idea down on paper, and at double time. Hot ideas burn out at a wicked pace, and you owe it to yourself to save it as fast as your little hands can write. These are wonderful moments in the life of any writer.

This is not about those times.

If the hot idea ignites your blood, then the absence of a hot idea can leave your veins shivering. Lots of writers frost over while waiting for that next hot idea to land in their lap. Some never even touch the keyboard or pen until the next idea “arrives”.

You need to dodge the hot/cold mentality altogether and focus on what really makes for a prolific writer. It isn’t waiting for that next idea to come to you–it’s going out and chasing down that next hot idea, clubbing it over the head, and dragging it back to your cave. But how do you chase down and club an idea?

Simple. By writing. Writing, no matter what.

Writing in cold blood is not always easy–hell, it almost never is. It can be tedious, frustrating, and can leave your head feeling numb. Every new word can remind you of that last trip to the dentist. But, just like getting a filling, you may not like it, but it’s worth it in the long run. Why?

Writing is a skill, and like any skill, without practice you lose your edge. Hell, if I don’t write every day then the words and ideas that I have in my head start to stave off and go stale. Your mind is a machine, and without daily maintenance, the parts gather gunk and the whole damn thing risks seizing up during one of those oh-so-rare hot ideas. Zero-to-Sixty writing is a high-risk game, and one you can avoid.

Writing in cold blood is annoying, it’s frustrating, and it tests your commitment. If you’re serious about being a writer, though, it’s one of the more important things you can do. Business types like the label “best practice”, and, for as little as I care about the business world, I have to agree. It is a best practice, because it keeps your juices flowing. A rolling stone gathers no moss, and pumping blood doesn’t go cold. Not only will you be ready when that next hot idea crosses your sights–you’ll probably handle it more quickly and with more depth of skill than you would have if you had just sat around waiting for it to fall into your lap.

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On the Terror of the Blank Page

By Clay August 2nd, 2010, under Storycraft

Very few things can match the terror of a blank page. Whether you work long form or use a word processor, when you sit down to write, it’s showtime–you’ve created your own private stage, the lights are on you, and the curtain’s rising. The audience has filled their seats, the orchestra has finished warming up, the show is ready to begin, right?

Except, like most of us, you open your mouth, and no words come out. Perhaps you manage a small, bleated yip before freezing up completely. Then you just stand there, dumbfounded and uncertain, with all eyes on you.

But what is this? Why is this happening? Here you are  your own private God, no? Why, the words should just spring forth–Let There Be Story–and then the page should just automatically fill up, or perhaps the keyboard should just starting clicking away on its own, or the pen should spring to life, scribbling furiously across entire reams of paper, yes?

If only.

Relax. We all get the jitters from time to time. And isn’t that really what this is? Rather than facing off against an expectant audience, though, we’re facing off against an internal audience–and our fears, doubts, and misgivings all have season tickets in the box seat. They sit up there, munching on their popcorn and their candy, slurping soda while spilling it on the floor, and the whole time they’re yelling “Give it up!” or “You’ll never make it, Fatso!” or whatever deflating insult your mind can cook up for them to shout. Even if you manage to quiet their little voices, you can never quite escape the feeling of their eyes, constantly zipping all over you–judging you, evaluating you, provoking you into feeling that maybe they’re right, maybe this is foolish, maybe I should give up.

Except, there are no eyes, are there? Your fears, doubts, and misgivings–those are just figments of your imagination, aren’t they? So, what’s really happening, and what can you do to stop it?

I’ve used the analogy of a stage performance because I feel it’s an appropriate comparison, and hopefully one that gives some semblance of what’s really going on inside the mind of your friendly neighborhood writer. Both are situations where you have an entertainer trying their damnedest to amuse an audience, to wow them with some brilliant and unexpected bravura performance. And, in both situations, it’s entirely possible that at any point your may spiral into despair and want to curl up into a ball in front of everyone and bawl your eyes out.

It’s stage fright, pure and simple. The blank page is terrifying to most writers. Now, I’m sure there are a few daring souls out there who look upon the their word processor or notepad and feel no fear–perhaps exhilaration, even–but I have not met them (and probably never will).

So what to do? Just start typing whatever comes into your head? Fill the page with endless rhetorical questions? Perhaps give in and actually do curl up into a ball?

I’m not brazen enough to declare there is one end-all correct answer here. There isn’t, or if there is, then it’s known by one guy, and he ain’t sharing. Maybe he’s the son of a bitch who looks at his notepad with boundless enthusiasm. But for the rest of us, down here on Earth, we turn to  little tricks to get the juices flowing–writing prompts, workshops, daily goals, and an endless stream of sugary snacks and gut-rotting soda.

Tiny crutches, I think of them. They ultimately help you, or they don’t. Whatever yours is–and I know you have one–if it works, I say do it, and do it without guilt. Me, personally, I love sour lemon candies. I work with a big bag of them in my drawer. Some days, they’re a reward for hitting the 1000-word mark. Other days, they’re encouragement to keep going until I hit the 20-word mark. No matter what, they’re there to keep me going.

I hope you have something that keeps you going–a personal totem, or sorts. A fount of power or a direct line to your Muse if you’re the poetic source. But something that keeps you going, keeps you writing. Something that keeps you standing on that stage, staring right back at all your fears and doubts, because believe me pal, they’re not going to be the ones to blink first. They never quite go away, either, but don’t let that stop you. In a way, they’ll keep you honest, but only if you have the wisdom to know when and when not to listen to them. It’s an interesting notion–that fear and doubt can be positive forces. It’s one of those ideas that sits right on the edge of your awareness, but we’ll have to save that discussion for another day.

For now, the key lesson to take away from this is that no matter what, you’ve already gone to the trouble of creating your stage, hiring your orchestra, and selling the tickets, so there’s no turning back now. It may start with a yip, but if you can push that to a second one, and then a third, you might just be on your way.

Keep going. Maybe you end up a ball on the floor at the end of the day, but you have to start somewhere, right?

Keep going. You never know where a yip can take you.

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50 Excuses for Not Writing (That Are All Lame)

By Clay July 30th, 2010, under Lists

I tried to brainstorm but my brain flooded…

Today we will talk about something every writer spends more time (than they’ll likely admit) doing: coming up with excuses.

Some are nagging thoughts, some are phobias. They often tend to clump together during many late-night writing sessions. More than a few are different takes on the same core concerns: time, creativity, and failure. This happens because, if you want to be a writer, you’re probably also the sort of person to obsess about things. Obsessing about failure allows you to gradually coax more and more variations and nuances into your worries, until what started as a molehill of doubt has grown into a mountain of fear. When that happens, it’s like a pre-emptive strike against your own psyche.

I do want to point out that not everything on here is always a problem–it’s only a problem when you’re reaching for it, trying to come up with a scenario to dodge the empty page. Sound familiar? Like maybe when you’re trying to force a situation in your writing? That’s right–excuses are just as contrived and often require the same amount of creativity that you should be pouring into your writing.

On days when I feel like I just can’t write, I push myself to put just why I can’t down on paper. Doing this accomplishes two things. For one, it keeps me writing. Two, it calls me on my own bullshit. Just can’t do it? Why, have you lost your hands? That’s still not even a valid excuse. Except for a few brief periods in my young-adult life when I was physically incapable (by slings and casts) from using a keyboard, I’ve always wrote. Even then I tried–and often failed–with spectacularly painful results.

So cut the crap. If you’re serious about writing, you need to overcome the urge to make excuses. Frankly, there are none. I’m not saying there won’t be perfectly valid reasons from time to time–say, the birth of your child or the passing of a loved one–but what I am saying is that you need to learn to identify the difference between reasons, and excuses.

Here’s today’s list to get you going:

50 Excuses for Not Writing (That Are All Lame)

  1. Too tired.
  2. Just don’t have the time.
  3. Not done “researching”.
  4. Wanting to “get it right” the first time.
  5. Not enough “vision”.
  6. Too busy.
  7. “I don’t know where to go next.”
  8. Fear of making mistakes.
  9. Don’t know where to begin.
  10. Don’t know how to keep going.
  11. Fear it won’t be good or people won’t like it.
  12. No ideas.
  13. Writing is too overwhelming.
  14. Too old.
  15. Too young.
  16. “My muse is on vacation.”
  17. Writing is hard.
  18. Wanting to having everything planned out first.
  19. There’s a TV show on you really want to watch.
  20. That new movie is out.
  21. Lack of confidence.
  22. Need to check Facebook for the fiftieth time today.
  23. Too many distractions.
  24. “I don’t have the right environment to write.”
  25. “I’ll get to it tomorrow.”
  26. “Nobody will want to read it.”
  27. “I’ll never finish this.”
  28. Don’t know how it will end.
  29. Not feeling well.
  30. “I wrote yesterday. I don’t need to write today.”
  31. “I don’t have enough experience.”
  32. Over thinking things like symbolism and theme.
  33. Worrying too much about publishing.
  34. Writing is painful.
  35. “I have writer’s block.”
  36. “I don’t know what it’s about.”
  37. “I’m just too down to write today.”
  38. “I just have too many other projects going on that I want to focus on.”
  39. “It doesn’t sound right.”
  40. “I can’t get it right.”
  41. “There’s already a lot of work out there like this.”
  42. “This is a waste of time.”
  43. “I won’t be able to sell this.”
  44. The cat (or dog, or kids, or whoever) needs me more.
  45. “I have to get ready for work.”
  46. “I need to pick up the house.”
  47. “I need to check my email.”
  48. “I’ll never make it as a writer.”
  49. “This will never pay the bills.”
  50. “I just can’t.”
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