Five Story Brainstorming Topics

I was recently asked, “How do you come up with your stories?” Whether for film, animation, or a graphic novel it's all story telling in the end. With such an organic process, as imagination, someone who is new to story telling may not know where to begin which is a natural place to be. Maybe you have thought of a few elements but don't know where to go from there.

This is the first of an ongoing series of story related blog posts. Hope it may shine some light on the mystery behind where idea and thought become something to transform the viewer to another time and place.

Five Story Brainstorming Topics: Think of a Situation, Character, Dialogue, Setting, or Object. The topics do not have to be in that order, whichever one stands out to you first. If you can't immediately think of one, pick an object from the room around you and your imagination will come up with the rest; I promise you. Once you've decided on your first topic start asking yourself what fits within that world and fill in the other four.

Lets start with...

Situation: A knight is fighting a dragon.
Now flesh out the scene around the purposed situation by answering the other four topics.

Character: Is it a male or female dressed in armor? Are they fighting heroically or cowering behind a rock afraid to attack? What body style or weight do they possess? Is that weight affecting how they are fighting?
Our situation gave us two characters so we can't forget to ask the important character questions about the dragon.
What color is the dragon? Can it fly or is it injured? Does your dragon breathe fire?

All of these things could change the story significantly.

Dialogue: Is the knight muttering under his or her breath afraid to move or is he or she cursing the dragon for killing their loved one? Very different scenes in deed. Can the dragon talk?

 

 Setting: On the sharp shale rocks of a distant mountain top overlooking a small village smoldering from a recent fire. Burnt from the dragon? Could be. Maybe the knight burned the village in order to lure the dragon out of hiding by the smell of burnt flesh. With one decision a little imagination turned our dragon slaying hero into a hellbent villain willing to sacrifice anyone. Setting can also include time as well as place. Is it a knight fighting a dragon in space because the moon was knocked out of orbit by a man made explosion sending it hurtling toward the sun and due to the increased temperatures it cracks open sending forth a mass of baby dragons headed for earth. (Possible Armageddon 5 plot, just wait you'll see.)

Object: It can be something that all the characters are after like Hitchcock's MacGuffin. “A MacGuffin is a plot device that motivates the characters and advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story itself” (hitchcockwiki.com). Maybe the deed to a piece of property or a diseased love ones will. In our example, I'm choosing a magical sword in the hands of the knight passed down from a council of ancients. However the knight could seize the sword of power earlier than expected by killing his or her mentor before completing training; setting up the knight's fatal flaw for the climax dragon battle.

Once you've made a few key decisions and choose an object for your characters to interact with you'll be surprised how quickly your story will start telling itself. I look forward to viewing the stories you create. Remember to not be afraid to turn your characters' lives upside down because that's what will make them interesting to follow.