[OT] Help! I need short story ideas, fast!

[MerakSpielman]

OK, I have a history of waiting till the last minute to get things done, right? Anyway, I'm an English major and I'm in my Senior year, and I'm taking a short story workshop. I did fine with my first story, but I'm hitting a wall on my second. It is due tomorrow, and I just can't think of any good ideas. Normally I can just sit down and start writing and it will turn into something workable, but it just ain't happening this time. I think I'm getting stressed with the whole if-I-don't-get-this-story-done-I'll-fail-the-class-and-not-graduate thing. My home working computer is down, along with all of my past stories that I might otherwise steal for this class.

If you could help me out I'd be greatly appreciative. Either full-fledged ideas or "first sentences" should help me get my feet off the ground. I can write 15-20 pages of narriative in about 3 hours - my last story, written just that way, was very well recieved by the class. The class is mature enough to handle serious stories on touchy topics (somebody wrote a chilling story about date rape, for instance), so if you have an idea that can't be printed here for grandmotherly reasons, feel free to email it to me. Use dmspiel@comcast.net since I can't get my regular email right now.

Sorry for bothering you all at home but I just didn't know where to turn...
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[LostSoul]

You could write a story about your own life. You know, events that made you feel something strongly. Or a point in your life that you enjoyed or hated. Those always make good stories.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Are there any themes, genre, etc, that a/ you find easier to write about, or b/ you feel would be particularly frowned upon by the markers?

-Hyp.

 

[MerakSpielman]

They seem to frown on sci-fi/fantasy. I suppose they don't consider that genre approprate for serious literature. The closest we've gotten is a tiny taste of paranormal. This is a shame because (surprise surprise) fantasy is where a lot of my interest lies.

We've had far too many stories from the point of view of college students. I know you should "write what you know," but after ten or so stories set on campus or at parties it's kind of worn thin. Of couse, I might be prejudiced since I loathe the traditional college culture.

What seems to go across well are real-world times and places. Characters with personalities that have to make difficult choices and undergo significant change as a result of those choices.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Well, there go all my ideas out the window. This is why I never liked the so-called "creative writing" classes that I took in college. Their version of creativity seemed mostly to involve aping whatever stories or journals the professor liked.

If you can't do outright fantastic stuff, take a "magical realism" approach, like Umberto Ecco or Isabelle Allende. Avoid any references to any kind of fantastic or supernatural events, and just leave it uncertain as to what's really going on. From what I've seen in these classes, most of the grading is based on the story's sensory details, anyhow. You'd think it was a visual arts class or something.

If you're trying to work in some fantasy elements, and can't, you could always go the "unreliable narrator" route. This is usually done in first person, or third person stream-of-conciousness. Essentially, the narrator has some sort of problems or bias that cause them to misinterpret what's going on around them. "Modern" period writers, such as Faulkner, did this a lot. It's also found a lot in horror stories.

How about this- pick a series of linked events from your childhood, such as a camping trip or a first week at school or whatever. The protagonist can be yourself or a character you invent. Postulate some sort of unseen forces at work behind the events, tying them together somehow. The forces could be helpful or malevolent, or just sort of there moving things along. In the end, the events themselves are what institute the change in the protagonist, but there's still a question of just what- if anything- was going on behind the scenes and how much of a part it had to play.

Hope this helps. If nothing else, you'll just have to stick with a story about a stressed-out student getting ready to graduate. Maybe his big life-changing event is the decision to go to grad school.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hmm. So if you imagine yourself as a scriptwriter for Dawson's Creek or Seventh Heaven, you're probably on the right track? (Don't forget your Moral Lesson!)

How about - A man considering suicide spends an afternoon in contemplation of a butterfly / a flower / the sound of church bells / the aroma from a barbeque restaurant, and decides that perhaps life's worth living after all.

Then gets hit by a falling refrigerator.

-Hyp.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Well, there go all my ideas out the window. This is why I never liked the so-called "creative writing" classes that I took in college. Their version of creativity seemed mostly to involve aping whatever stories or journals the professor liked.

I can't disagree... All the workshops I've taken have been divided between discussing our stories and discussing the assigned readings. I always feel that the teachers are assigning readings they like as an example of the kind of work to which they expect you to aspire. I had one professor who only assigned readings out of HIS volume of Vietnam war stories. Of course, nobody in the class was in Nam so I'm not sure what he expected of us. I had one professor outright forbid all "genre" writing. He divided fiction writing into Literary Writing and Genre Writing. I'm still not quite sure what he meant by that - he didn't explain it very well.

If you can't do outright fantastic stuff, take a "magical realism" approach, like Umberto Ecco or Isabelle Allende. Avoid any references to any kind of fantastic or supernatural events, and just leave it uncertain as to what's really going on.
...snip...
How about this- pick a series of linked events from your childhood, such as a camping trip or a first week at school or whatever. The protagonist can be yourself or a character you invent. Postulate some sort of unseen forces at work behind the events, tying them together somehow. The forces could be helpful or malevolent, or just sort of there moving things along. In the end, the events themselves are what institute the change in the protagonist, but there's still a question of just what- if anything- was going on behind the scenes and how much of a part it had to play.

Could be something here... I think a gear moved in my brain... Just gotta figure out which gear and which way it moved...

Hope this helps. If nothing else, you'll just have to stick with a story about a stressed-out student getting ready to graduate.

How about a stressed-out student getting ready to graduate, with a 2 year old son and a pregnant wife, renting a house from his father who makes ten times as much as he does but is still bugging him about the rent, with a new job where he's trying to make a good impression in a passionless corporate environment while his neglected, huge back yard withers from neglect and simultaniously trying to DM a D&D campaign while playing in 2 others?

Maybe his big life-changing event is the decision to go to grad school.

Heavens forbid! (see above paragraph)

edit: fixed a spelling error quite inappropriate for an English major. All other spelling errors, if present, are deliberately included as an artistic statement.

 

[blackshirt5]

How about a story about a snippy college student who cuts himself off from contact with others when people keep making jokes about the large amounts of porn you can find on his computer?

Yes, I am angry with Angcuru, why do you ask?

 

[jester47]

Take two completely unrelated topics and link them together with one event.

For instance, the falling refrigerator and the man contemplating suicide. While the man is contemplating suicide, you have some sort of situation at altitude that involves a struggle and in some way a refrigerator. I am thinking somthing like some military guys trying to do somthing with airforce property they are not supposed to be doing, like help a friend move. Somthing goes wrong and the fridge then has a logical and reasonable reason for hitting the dude. What you do is cut back and forth but never reveal that the fridge has left the plane until you describe a human getting smashed by a falling fridge.

Another thing you can do is take two movies. And then combine them. So for example:

The Shawshank Redemption and Castaway. A guy crash lands in a plane at sea and washes ashore to some prison island. There he has to prove that he is an innocent man. But the warden is a little kookoo and belives that if the man left the prison's reputaiton as inescapable would be soiled.

how about anne of green gables and the seven samurai
or Henry V and Good will hunting
Casino and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.
Top Gun and The Shining

A "good" short story is not supposed to change location and is supposed to be detail of one period of time in that location.

Best yet, take a Robert E. Howard conan story and turn it into a modern day real world version of that story. Look at the Pheonix on the sword. Instead of a former barbarian, you have a former punk and how he is now a CEO and has to fend off a hostile takeover of his big megacorp... Only after you have the grade let people know that a Conan story was a big inspiration...

Maybe that will help, don't worry about the ideas, they are a dime a dozen. Here, have some...

Aaron.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Somthing goes wrong and the fridge then has a logical and reasonable reason for hitting the dude.

What? What?

Logical and reasonable? You're taking a perfectly good falling refrigerator, and you want to ruin it with "logical and reasonable"?

What about the plot, Hemingway? What's an anvil got to do with this story?
Who cares? Anvils are funny!
Slappy Squirrel and Skippy Squirrel, Animaniacs.

-Hyp.