A Guide to Ink Masterpieces

The Brainstorm: Developing an Idea into a Story

Developing an Idea

         Brainstorming is actually one of the later steps in the writing process. This is one of the few that do not have a specific structure to follow. Now in order to brainstorm, you must start with an idea.

ideas should be summarized in one sentence.

I will cover the steps to developing an idea that we will later develop into a story. An idea should not be confused with a prompt.

writing prompt gives you a direction to go in and inspires the idea.

         The idea should always be written in the form of a question, and your brainstorm should be the answers to this question. There are a thousand ways a writer can come up with an idea. I could be reading a newspaper article about a reservist in Afghanistan who saved his sergeant from an IED by throwing a grenade the length of a football field away from their convoy because their communications was down from a firefight earlier that afternoon and he was unable to warn the front-line of the threat ahead. This is what you would call the inspiration or prompt of the idea.

         After I finish reading the article, I start to consider a number of things. I think about how he was treated before the event and afterward. I consider the possibility that the story is not 100% accurate, I think about the amount of fear and the kind of loyalty that man must have to his platoon and company, I think about the kind of man he must be. I think about the future missions he will go on and what his family must go through without him there. All of these thoughts can be formed into the idea. The idea I will be using for my example in this article is: what happens when this soldier returns from his tour in Afghanistan?

Turning that Idea into a Story

         Now that we have come up with the question, we must find the solutions to this. A story is a detailed and complex solution to the problem at hand, and in order to find this solution we must brainstorm. What is brainstorming? ▼

Definition of BRAINSTORMING
: a group problem-solving technique that involves the spontaneous contribution of ideas from all members of the group; also : the mulling over of ideas by one or more individuals in an attempt to devise or find a solution to a problem
— brain·storm verb
— brain·storm·er noun

         Q: What happens when this soldier returns from his tour in Afghanistan?

         A: When the reservist returns home with his company from his 13 month long deployment in Afghanistan, he has completed his contract with the National Guard and decides not to reenlist. He is home once again with his family and returns to his civilian job as an employee on the assembly line of a Ford Motors factory.

         When you come up with one answer, another series of questions will arise. Once you have answered those, more questions are asked which in turn provide you with more answers. After you have asked and answered a million questions, you have your story. All that you will have to do is proceed to put the answers and explanations in order and polish it up before presenting it for your audience's pleasure.

         Okay, so he comes home. Clearly that is not the end of the story because we are asking what happens. I find that the best way to brainstorm is to come up with a list of themes

a subject or topic of discourse or of artistic representation

that will be found through out the story. This technique is so effective that you are making a rough draft of what would be an outline.

a preliminary account of a project or known as a plan

Let's begin with finding consistent themes that would be typical in this type of story. The easiest way to establish the type of themes you would find in your story is to consider it as a non-fictional event.

         Q: What if your country were to go to war, and your spouse was deployed, what type of things would you see as a result both personally and generally?

         A: On a personal level, the family would be afraid that their husband/father/son/brother/uncle/etc. might get hurt or killed overseas. They would get lonely and miss him as time went on. You would see the psychological effects such as depression, anger, infidelity, disciplinary issues at school, verbal or emotional abuse to each other, anxiety, and other behaviors of the like. Day-to-day tasks might be difficult for them if he were the head of household who not only made the financial decisions but disciplinary decisions in regards to their children misbehaving or not having acceptable grades in their schoolwork. The general housework like cleaning gutters, mowing the lawn, fixing the plumbing and/or car maintenance would suffer if he was the one who generally took care of those things; and you would see a large amount of money being spent to hire professionals to take care of these matters if the family was unable to find assistance from relatives, friends or neighbors. Their political views may also be influenced by this event, as well as their perspective on the country and the government.

         On a general level, you will find the country in an uproar. Liberals screaming baby-killers and conservatives crying for the freedom of this nation to be ensured, gas prices going up, prejudices and hate crimes on the rise, stock market going nuts, all of your favorite celebrities you read gossip on are now peddling their political agendas, the fear of homegrown terrorists flourishing in major cities, bills being passed to give the government free reign; and depending on the length and scale of a war such as this one, you will see signs of economic crisis and recession like the one we have been struggling to push through for just about as long as the war itself.

         You can comb through your answer and pick out common themes that you find within it. Your list would look something like this:

Themes
Military
War
Family
Work
Sacrifice
Psychological Effects
Violence
Recession

         Keep in mind that this list is used strictly as a reference tool for you during the brainstorm process. You do not have to touch on every single theme unless you want to. It also depends on the type of story and the length of story you plan on writing. Some of these themes may not serve the purpose of your story and in some ways hurt it more than help it. As I said, it is a point of reference to make writing this story easier for you. Since we now have a direction to go in, let us go down the list of themes, asking questions that fall within each of the themes you have selected from the list. Toward the end of the brainstorm (or at any point of the writing process) you may add a theme or remove one as you see fit.

         Q: What are the reservist's personal views on the military?

         A: His father and both of his uncles fought in the Vietnam war after his grandmother and grandfather had immigrated from Russia. After his father lost both of his siblings in Vietnam, he was brought home to the reservist's grandparents. Several years later, due to the impending war between Russia and the United States (the Cold War), the grandparents returned to their homeland to collect the rest of their family and bring back with them to America. However, they were barred from returning themselves and the reservist's father had never heard from his family again. Afterward, his own father became bitter toward America because even though the U.S. was supposed to be the land of the free, it had torn his family apart all the while making him endure the cruelty of U.S. Citizens who disagreed with the Vietnam war and those who hated Russians and feared all Russians in America were in fact terrorists or "sleeper cells."

         This reservist's father ended up marrying a Russian mail-order bride (the reservist's mother) a few years after the Cold War had been "officially" ended. She was beautiful and kind. She was really the only thing that brought joy into his father's life. When he was twelve, his mother was shot with a stray bullet during a drive-by shooting that took place outside of the corner market she bought their groceries at. His father's views on the military, war, and family had twisted once more and influenced his own personal views.

         When he turned 18, he chose to enlist in the Army because he wanted to support his high school sweetheart after her father had been beaten her so bad that she lost her left eye. Shortly after he went through basic training, he married her and moved her to Fort Bragg, North Carolina with him. They soon had children and he faced his first long deployment to Afghanistan.

         As you can see, you find several themes within this response after I had selected the military theme. You will find that this happens throughout your brainstorm and your drafting. When the themes of your story are naturally interlocked like this in the early stages of your story, it is evidence that the flow will be effortless. Only after answering three questions, I have covered six out of the eight themes that were listed. These are signs that you are on the right track.

         A back-story has been laid out for the reservist; however, his wife is also a key character who's back-story should also be considered. Once you have asked questions about her, it leads to the children and to the decisions they have made. It opens up questions about their friends and the reservist's friends/brothers in arms. Remember that you ask as many questions as you want, but you don't have to use them all in your story. Keep them at hand so if you find yourself stuck you can go back and have another quick brainstorm to get the ball rolling again.

         After you have finished this process of Q+A, it is time to organize it into a cohesive work. You will want to make a character sheet

a biography of character's background, their physical description, tie in how they are connected to other characters and which characters those are, etc.

that lists all the facts and bits of information that you find is important to the character. Do not worry about the story; focus on the character. We will cover character sheets in-depth in my next blog.

Brainstorming as an Individual versus Brainstorming as a Group

         There are advantages to both sides, but ultimately it is a preference. When you are brainstorming by yourself, you retain all the privacy and secrecy most of us writers love to have. Some of us maintain the superstition that sharing your work before it is finished with others will jinx it from being completed. You are also able to take the time to think over some pretty radical ideas without the concern of embarrassment; and others are not able to discourage you from your radical ideas because of their differing tastes.

         Brainstorming as a group, however, also has its advantages. Finding a handful of people to kick the ideas around with can be a motivator for you when you get bored or question if it is a story anyone will want to read. You get a good amount of feedback on the idea itself and are able to build off of the positive and fix the negative before you ever write your first sentence. When you are doing this alone, you have a tendency to think narrowly and forget a lot of important pieces of the story. When there are more people, each person is able to take a different avenue and tell you what they find is important to this story. You get better coverage on most aspects of the story, making it a more thoroughly prepared piece. As I said before though, you have to face the potential rejection and discouragement from others when you are brainstorming in a group setting; so it is important that you decide what you feel is best for you and your story.