News can be a wonderful source
for ideas about fiction. Even without capitalizing on the actual people in a particular
event and thus opening yourself to litigation. If you merely ask a few simple
questions, you can unearth multiple story ideas in any genre, to use as the
main part or the backdrop. How do you go about it?
While news reports of a tragedy
may seem the logical choice, tucked between ads for insurance and mortuaries
can be other thought provoking items. (Read the story in the photo above.) Here I used a headline without connection to death – at least one that no one realizes... Bwhaha...(Cozy Murder Mystery)
Women’s Fiction/Contemporary
Had this woman made someone
angry? Was the wrong address recognized/posted by the angry party who decided
to use it as an excuse to upset/ harm her, even steal her kitten? If so, what
was the original grievance? Was it legitimate? What if this woman was an up-and-coming personality? Was it an act of cruelty or revenge or jealousy? Was it a
prank? How does the woman deal with it? Or, how does the perpetrator change and
grow through the consequences of this deed?
Romantic Suspense:
Does a police investigator become
emotionally involved with the victim? To what lengths will he go to retrieve
the missing items, especially when she reveals that they include a journal with
notations of a highly critical matter? Does an old boyfriend that she’s afraid of
still possess a key? Has the locksmith she’s hired to replace the locks kept a
copy of the key? What about that hunky neighbor or boss or faithful old friend whose been in love with her and now has a chance to finally show it as he helps her though this difficulty?
Science Fiction:
Will some secret government
agency become involved in tracking down the missing kitty because it really is
an information gathering robot that was tracking a terrorist cell? Or, maybe the
kitten is an extraterrestrial intelligence who knew that the new DVD this woman
bought actually contained the plans to overtake the earth.
Young Adult
Does a ten-year-old child return
the kitten, only to discover that the owner looks like an older version of herself
and is actually the sister that she was separated from when the Department of
Child Services took them away from their family? How do they get together
again? What secrets ripped the family apart?
Or…maybe the kitten is a
werewolf/ shape-shifter…
Most of these are well-used, but you get the idea.
I remember in the '70's watching a movie and at first I thought it started with the Lindbergh kidnapping. No, it was a similar event in the story, which appeared not only in the movie but the book -- Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christy.
ReplyDeleteI believe actual legal cases inspired books by the involved lawyers -- John Grisham and Randy Singer.
Interesting.
ReplyDelete