Tuesday Tips: Stories (and where to find them)

‘Story is king’ Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse series once told me,  ‘No child ever asks their parent to tell them about the clever structure, or perfect grammar, or accurate detail; all a child wants is to be told a story.’ We were sitting in his drawing room in Oxford on a fine sunny day, cup in hand, while he talked about writing and I listened intently. My debut novel - Mortal Fire - was about to be released and Colin had kindly offered to read and comment with a view to potentially endorsing it. I was nervous, not surprisingly, and whether I drank tea or coffee I couldn’t say, because all I wanted to know was: did he like the book? I needn’t have worried - he did, and what he said over that morning had me walking on air. But that’s not the point here. The point is story is king.

Colin Dexter (Image: The Guardian)

Now, some people - me included - are bursting with stories. Our main concern is whether we have enough decades in which to write them all. Others, though, struggle to come up with ideas for the next book. A good friend of mine, who writes the most wonderful contemporary fiction, bemoans her lack of ideas around which she can weave a story. I’m never concerned as she always manages to find just the right angle and away she goes, whipping up the goods in a matter of months.

But what if you really struggle to find the next storyline? What can you do to make the process easier?

The good news is that there are many, many ways to find that gripping new story. Here are just a few to be getting on with:

Browse the newspapers, especially those inside pages away from the attention-grabbing headlines. And don’t forget the 150 years or so of past publications - there are enough ideas in there to sink a battleship. Hmm, battleship - now there’s an idea.

Interested in causes? Do you have a bee in your bonnet? Explore it through story. Writing about something you care about is a way to tap into a deep well of ideas.

Similarly, obsessions are a grand way of fuelling story. My obsession with history, and especially the Wars of the Roses, led to me writing about what I love best. And who isn’t fascinated by strong characters, driving ambition, binding loyalty and intrigue? Not into history? Then make it contemporary fiction or set it in the future.

Alternative scenarios. We know that the Tudors took (usurped) the English throne in 1485, but what if they hadn’t? Or, if they did, what if Prince Arthur hadn’t died and his younger brother, Henry, never became king? What if antibiotics had never been discovered, or the wheel invented? What if women were the dominant gender - how would the world look then? Ah, wait, the recent movie Barbie proposes just such a question - the writers applied the idea of an alternative scenario. Think the film’s just for girls in pink dresses? Think again.

Fantasies. Do you see yourself in a different role in life, a bit like Arnie’s character in True Lies? Have you ever day-dreamed about getting up on stage, or manning a lighthouse, discovering a cure, or walking on the surface of Mars? Day-dreaming is a wonderful place to find stories.

Are some ideas beginning to form? Is there a niggle that’s waiting to be explored? Grab that pen and make a few notes because next time I’m going to be looking at ways to take an idea and run with it.