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

[orchid blossom]

When I took creative writing I had a very rough time coming up with story ideas. One thing I did to break through it was to just write a couple pages trying to create an atmosphere. Apprehension, joy, anger, whatever you want. Then I'd take that atmosphere and work backwards to figure out how it came about, and then went forward and resolved it. Worked for me a couple of times, and seemed to take that "I need a complete idea!" pressure off.

Good luck to you.

 

[WizWrm]

A federal prisoner breaking out? There won't be a lot of people writing about that, at least. You could tell it from multiple perspectives (a guard also), if you want, maybe.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Tell a story from an unusual perspective. Instead of writing about a medieval battle from the point of view of a soldier or a knight going into the battle, write from the point of view of the farmer who is having his wheat field trampled. Write about gladiators in the Roman arena from the point of view of one of the guys who works in the pits below making sure everything goes off as planned.

Here's a starting point:
"The floor of Flavian Ampitheater looks solid enough on first inspection but, in reality, a maze of hot, dank rooms and tunnels lies below. Whenever there are games, a veritable legion of men work in them to make sure the games go off without a hitch. It's hot, hard and dangerous work, and mostly unappreciated, but without it the emperor's games would never happen. My name is Androcles and I carry a toolbox."

 

[Pants]

I guess I'm just lucky then. The Creative Writing class that I'm currently in is all about improving your writing method, not about writing for literary snobs. Near half of the stories in the class turned out to be fantasy styled stories, as was mine.

However, since your class frowns on the supernatural, how about a story about a man's spiral into madness? He sees things that he believes are supernatural, but they turn out to be figments of his imagination... or do they?

Or you could write a semi-historical story. Perhaps, a story set during the Hundred Years War, but from the perspective of a lowly man-at-arms. Or something of that nature.

Perhaps do a college story with a twist. The main character is your average every-day college student, outgoing, kind, has a good girlfriend, etc. However, on this one day he ends up making all the wrong choices and quickly spirals downward into a character that is hateful and loathing and generally unlikeable. Perhaps he heads off to a rather rowdy party where he ends up cheating on his girlfriend, one of his friends gets too drunk and passes out and dies. However, instead of taking him to the hospital, he decides to dispose of the body and it all goes downhill from there.

 

[takyris]

Let's see... back when I took the normal creative writing courses, I always found that it was hard to go wrong with bad sex or dead relatives. Those were just classic stories in those classes... tons of young adult characters having bad sex, or having parents just dying left and right, or old uncles, or, you know, something. Man, that was fun.

Okay, but practically speaking: Steal Something. Just plop something in a new setting. Take the story of Prometheus -- he steals fire for humanity, but then the gods punish him with eternal torment. Turn it into, say, a programmer who insists on posting his company's code on the web for everyone to see and download after he hears about a patent attempt that will put a lot of smaller companies out of business. He's fired and effectively blacklisted from any major company forever -- many of them owe him a debt of gratitude, but nobody would ever hire him.

Start the story about two years after he's realized that he's never going to work again in that industry, that he's going to have to get a job at Starbuck's or bus tables in order to make a living, while other folks get rich off of his hard work.

Failing that, use this utility from my old website, and tweak it into something mainstream so that your class doesn't get all snippy:

http://www.geocities.com/gpweekes/storygen.html

 

[Hypersmurf]

However, since your class frowns on the supernatural, how about a story about a man's spiral into madness? He sees things that he believes are supernatural, but they turn out to be figments of his imagination... or do they?

"And then he woke up. It was all a dream..."

I remember teachers in Intermediate school threatening us with death if any of our stories ever finished like that... ("all a dream", that is, rather than the whole spiral-into-madness idea.)

I always found that it was hard to go wrong with bad sex or dead relatives.

Whereas bad sex with dead relatives is an almost-guaranteed disaster...

-Hyp.

 

[BSF]

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.

Man - with an air force base in town, this doesn't sound too implausible.

Merak - go with something local that you know. Let's see. A character on a tram ride up to the crest. He can view the trees in the valleys changing color as winter approaches. Turn it into symbolism of change in life. Especially since you are in your senior year. If you don't like the tram, go with the ski lifts on the other side of the Sandia's, or a drive up through Chama or Taos. You live here, so I am sure you can think of something!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Turn it into symbolism of change in life.

Getting hit by a falling refrigerator symbolises a pretty big change in your life too, of course.

-Hyp.

 

[silentspace]

A couple things that've worked for me in creative writing courses:

- Write about an important event in your life, but from someone else's perspective. Like your wedding from your wife's perspective. (Don't tell her though! ) When I've done this I've had insights I would never have had otherwise.

- Take a genre that's not popularly accepted (penthouse letters is what I used, but anything works - sci-fi/fantasy, harlequin romances) and write a totally deadpan story, but take the tropes just a little too far. Make it a little self-conscious, but still straight enough to be taken seriously. A good example of this is John Gardner's 'Grendel'.

Edit: Not that Beowulf is not popularly accepted, but when you get down to it, it's 'just' a fantasy story

 

[Pants]

"And then he woke up. It was all a dream..."

I remember teachers in Intermediate school threatening us with death if any of our stories ever finished like that... ("all a dream", that is, rather than the whole spiral-into-madness idea.)

The St. Elsewhere fallacy. Not exactly what I had in mind, but if you can make it work...

Getting hit by a falling refrigerator symbolises a pretty big change in your life too, of course.

-Hyp.

A change from 3 dimensional to 2 dimensional.

Merak - go with something local that you know. Let's see. A character on a tram ride up to the crest. He can view the trees in the valleys changing color as winter approaches. Turn it into symbolism of change in life. Especially since you are in your senior year. If you don't like the tram, go with the ski lifts on the other side of the Sandia's, or a drive up through Chama or Taos. You live here, so I am sure you can think of something!

Surprisingly, one of the students in my writing class wrote something almost exactly like what you described. Very powerful imagery, but it went nowhere and left me rather cold inside.
Personally, writing something like this is walking the very thin line between amazing writing and pretentious writing. I'd never do it, as I think I'd fall onto the pretentious side, but some people can do it amazingly well...