Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Do you have a great idea for a story? If you can write one sentence, there you go.

“I have a great idea of a story,” said a a person who has a writer as a friend. The person continues with, “I will tell you the idea, you write the story, and we’ll share the (really big anticipated) profits.”

Several things to note here: (1) there are no really big profits in 999,999 of 1,000,000 stories, (2) everyone has great ideas for stories, (3) writers actually write the stories, and (4) that is the difference between writers and everyone else.

Moving on, here are some tips for the person with the great idea. First, write the great idea on a piece of paper with a pencil.

“These guys rob a bank by bulldozing an ATM and grabbing all the cash.”

Expand “these guys.” You don’t have to write sentences or paragraphs, just grab another piece of paper and write something like: (1) three white males, (2) age 23, (3) high school grads, (4) work for the construction company owned by one of their uncles, (5) live in the wheat farming area of Kansas, (6) it is the year 2024, (7) all three are single.

Now there are seven things about “these guys.” We can change any of those seven to change the story. For example, they are all married, they live in Brooklyn, New York, or both. Perhaps it is the year 2020 in the beginning of COVID-19. Those and other changes change the story.

Move to the next thing and expand “bank.” Grab another piece of paper and write something like: (1) convenience store, (2) edge of a small town, (3) owned by a dreaded enemy from high school, (4) has gas pumps, (5) keeps all the cash in a safe cemented in the floor.

Now there are five things about “the bank.”

Step through everything else in the one sentence that began the story. Expand (1) bulldozer, (2) grabbing, and (3) cash. Now there are about … let’s see 5 times 5 times 5 times 5 times 5 … and that is, uh, carry the two, add the seven, and there are over 3,000 different ways to make the original one-sentence story real. There are probably some crazy combinations with some really funny and some really frightening.

Okay, six pieces of paper: (1) original sentence, (2) expansion of “these guys,” (3) expansion of bank, (4) expansion of bulldozer, (5) expansion of grabbing, and (6) expansion of ATM. Cut pages (2) through (6) so that there is one item per cut. Randomly pull one item from each pile. Look at it. Write it? Try again. Write it? And so on.

Here is another variation: start writing the story and then change one item. Two out-of-towners show up and now there are five guys. Maybe two females join and now we have three guys and two gals. Make the gals 66 years old. Gosh. I lost track of the stories we could write.

Got a great idea for a story? Don’t bother your friend the writer.