Overloaded with Story Ideas...

[Naomi]

I have so many, and the ones that I'm interested in change so often. My paranormal detective story? My Middle Eastern adventure fantasy? And so many more.

I think the genre I find myself getting ideas for the most is the detective story. Mainly because I can get two very different characters to work together. Recently, I've had an idea for a person with Asperger's and another with Down's Syndrome to work together to solve crimes. It stems from a frustration mainly at the popular depiction of people with Down's as only being around to show how good the neurotypical/abled protagonists are by even associating with them. 90% of the time, they are children and are rarely shown as adults.

So I thought, if I wanted to change that so badly, why not write my own story?

Some ideas for the characters (I'm using composite names, not any official character names)...

Leah - A woman with Downs in her early 20s. Rabidly consumes comic books and loves to make collages from them. Works at a factory for a small wage - spends most of it on various small things. A good friend to Ida, but makes fun of her for not being anything like the detectives in movies "where's your cool hat?". Has a frightening temper (if pushed too far), and is often the first to be angry at Ida for completely shutting down out of self-pity.

Ida - A woman who wanted to be a lawyer, but got so obsessed with solving crimes that she decided to occasionally consult with the police. Actually works as a private detective, so most of the time, the stuff she deals with is boring and petty. Overall dissatisfied with life and will sometimes shut down and wallow in self-pity. Her occasional outbursts of brilliance have been enough to survive, but not thrive. Will patiently let people vent to her, even if she doesn't fully pay attention. Loves to cook and makes a habit out of buying things for her friends (mainly Leah).

I keep on imagining these character's conversations, more than anything else. I know (Ida especially) they aren't your typical heroes, but I find them interesting. Much more interesting than a stereotypical hard-boiled or brilliant detective, at least.

So what do you guys think? It's so hard having becoming obsessed with one story idea, and then a week later, becoming obsessed with another. Writing out the idea sometimes helps, because it gets out of my brain and onto paper. So, please forgive my rambling about my stories. It's a habit.

 

[Asperganoid]

No need to be apologetic. I enjoyed reading the character sketches. Hopefully you share more in the blogs? maybe?

What about villains, what type of baddies do they face in what seems a potentially riveting story?

Any chance that thinking more holistically (good guys, bad guys, family, etc) would allow you to stick with the story? maybe you already do and it's just idea overload anyway, as you've said.

Ever read about the seven basic plots? I struggled for a while to move forward with a story until i read about the 7 plots that are found in every story ever told. maybe you already know about it.

Really interested in reading a story with autistic folk. I'm into victorian fiction lately (bit of an obsession), Hopefully my little idea extras could help.

You can share more with me if you want. I enjoy the field of fiction and have been evolving (slower than i'd like) ever since i found out that it's my field of interest.

good luck on STICKING to a story and seeing it through.

 

[dragonwolf]

I have notebooks and notebooks, and back before the days of cloud storage, I had floppy disks and floppy disks filled with stories. Some I started and never finished, some intentionally just a scene of a larger story, some whole sections of novels or scripts for comic books or video games. Fleshed out characters, illustrations, backstories, the works. I've actually had a couple of stories that unfolded over the course of years, due to the nature of how I wrote them (in part due to taking turns with friends in writing scenes).

I've since fallen out of the fiction/fantasy writing (much to my dismay), but I have the same thing going with blog posts for a couple of my interests. I'll sometimes have as many as three or four articles in the works at any given time (I'm actually at a low of 0, since I managed to finish the ones I was working on prior to starting more).

And that doesn't include the dozen other projects I've started, but haven't gotten around to finishing (thankfully, many of them can be finished and have a definite end, unlike writing, which can go on forever if you want to).

Artists in general will go through thousands upon thousands of pages' worth of writing or illustrations that will never see the light of day. My best friend growing up wanted to be a comic book artist. She's got albums online on both Facebook and DeviantArt (and I think WetCanvas), and all of them combined might have 1% of all of the drawings she's done. She used to average about a spiral-bound sketchbook a month.

So, don't feel bad if you start something and don't finish it right away. Don't feel bad if you just write disjointed scenes for a while. The important part is to write. Get it all out there. Then, you can clean it up, link scenes together, and whatever else you need to do if you want to make it a complete book. Keep in mind, too, that it doesn't have to be a traditional book. I once found a horror story that was written as a series of emails from the main character, which then spread to other mediums, like blog posts and whatnot. It was actually really cool. Perhaps try it, at least for now, as a blog from one (or both) of the characters' point of view. I'm a fan of dreamwidth.org for such projects, but wordpress.com, blogger.com, or tumblr.com or any of the other blogging platforms would work well for this kind of thing.

What I've found to be the most successful is to just do my thing. I do most of the stuff that I do for my own sake. I write things in large part for my own learning, to get out my opinion, or whatnot. I just happen to share them in forums where other people can read them. I've garnered a large number of followers especially on my older accounts, solely because people liked what I shared and not because I sought out an audience.

 

[tree]

Seven Basic Plots:
1. Overcoming the Monster
2. Rags to Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

Multiple examples of each plot type and a link to the 36 dramatic situations here:
The Seven Basic Plots - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have always liked the 3-part approach to drama:
Get man up tree/throw rocks at him/get down from the tree

Several ways of saying this here:
The Big Apple: “Get your hero up a tree, throw stones at him, then get him down” (playwriting adage)

Now....to post it without spending any more time
wondering how I could use these guidelines to make a game...

 

[Naomi]

No need to be apologetic. I enjoyed reading the character sketches. Hopefully you share more in the blogs? maybe?

What about villains, what type of baddies do they face in what seems a potentially riveting story?

Any chance that thinking more holistically (good guys, bad guys, family, etc) would allow you to stick with the story? maybe you already do and it's just idea overload anyway, as you've said.

Ever read about the seven basic plots? I struggled for a while to move forward with a story until i read about the 7 plots that are found in every story ever told. maybe you already know about it.

Really interested in reading a story with autistic folk. I'm into victorian fiction lately (bit of an obsession), Hopefully my little idea extras could help.

You can share more with me if you want. I enjoy the field of fiction and have been evolving (slower than i'd like) ever since i found out that it's my field of interest.

good luck on STICKING to a story and seeing it through.

My main idea for a conflict would be something where, through one of Ida's usual jobs through detectiving, she accidentally comes upon a much more serious crime.

I'd love to share with you. Another problem with my writing is trying to find people to look over it.

 

[Naomi]

Seven Basic Plots:
1. Overcoming the Monster
2. Rags to Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

Multiple examples of each plot type and a link to the 36 dramatic situations here:
The Seven Basic Plots - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have always liked the 3-part approach to drama:
Get man up tree/throw rocks at him/get down from the tree

Several ways of saying this here:
The Big Apple: “Get your hero up a tree, throw stones at him, then get him down” (playwriting adage)

Now....to post it without spending any more time
wondering how I could use these guidelines to make a game...

I myself like to read TVtropes. It helps me get out of writer's block/

 

[tree]

I myself like to read TVtropes. It helps me get out of writer's block/

TVtropes---It is easy for me to get off track there.
That means I end up in several directions, that I didn't intend to go.
Sometimes that's helpful. Sometimes...I just use up time.

 

[Asperganoid]

Seven Basic Plots:
1. Overcoming the Monster
2. Rags to Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

Multiple examples of each plot type and a link to the 36 dramatic situations here:
The Seven Basic Plots - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have always liked the 3-part approach to drama:
Get man up tree/throw rocks at him/get down from the tree

Several ways of saying this here:
The Big Apple: “Get your hero up a tree, throw stones at him, then get him down” (playwriting adage)

Now....to post it without spending any more time
wondering how I could use these guidelines to make a game...

The seven plots are gold to me. ever since i started approaching my writing with those in mind, and also looking out for them in movies, it's been like finding the right equation which can be used in so many different ways. bah!

 

[AsheSkyler]

So what do you guys think? It's so hard having becoming obsessed with one story idea, and then a week later, becoming obsessed with another. Writing out the idea sometimes helps, because it gets out of my brain and onto paper. So, please forgive my rambling about my stories. It's a habit.

What a lot of my writer friends (and me sometimes too) do is just write down the clips/scenes that are most coherent. I've a few friends that work on a few stories at once, some that just focus on one story at a time until it's completed before moving on to another, and some that work in rounds by that put out so many chapters on one story before going to the next and so on before starting the cycle over.

 

[tree]

from Film Narrative. | BFI Film Academy Bristol