2 simple ways to turn an idea into a compelling story

Whether you're writing a novel or trying to create a narrative for a presentation

---

“THE BOMB IN THE SHED…” - CHAPTER 1 - CHAPTER 2…
‘Great story so far’, ‘I love this - I'm hooked’, ‘It’s definitely intriguing’, ‘My eyes are peeled for the next chapter’

---

Photo by Laura Gilchrist on Unsplash

Hi Everyone

How do you turn an idea into a full story?

It’s an interesting question relevant to everyone. After all, we use storytelling in lots of aspects of our lives, not just novels and movies.

I can’t claim to be an expert of course, but I have done a fair amount of research into storytelling and I’m on my second novel. So I thought I would share what I’ve learnt so far in case it’s useful.

There are two approaches that work for me (although you can be the judge of that, we are only 2 chapters in to “The bomb in the shed…” after all.)

• Approach 1 - the ‘bottom up’ approach

• Approach 2 - the ‘top down’ approach

1. The ‘bottom up’ approach

If you haven’t done already I’d recommend taking a look at Stephen King’s book ‘On writing’. He said something like…

‘Create interesting characters, let them loose in extraordinary situations and then see what happens’.

I tried to find the direct quote for this but failed, so maybe I imagined it. My memory is rubbish these days.

The idea is that that you set the premise, throw in a few interesting characters and drop them into a difficult situation and see what happens from there. The same applies to other forms of communication, like a presentation for example. You’re taking a mix of people, facts, context and an ultimate goal and trying to organise them into a narrative that connects with your audience. Start with your raw ingredients and let them speak to you.

It’s not necessarily about just taking the next logical step though.

It needs to be more creative and surprising than that, but the clues to what could happen next are all there if you listen. There’s something quite magical when things start to flow. The story takes on a life of its own.

This is the process as I imagined it before starting creative writing, something mysterious that rises from the subconscious, as far away as possible from how my analytical brain normally works.

The problem with using this approach alone is that you can end up with a story that’s a meandering mess that doesn’t mean anything to anyone.

2. The ‘top down’ approach

Which is why I think a top down approach is important too.

People have studied and written about the theory of what makes a good story for as long as people have been telling them. As human beings it seems we respond to stories in certain ways. There are formulas for good storytelling, so why not use them?

I learned to play the bass guitar when I was growing up. Something I often heard from other people learning an instrument was ‘I don’t want to learn music theory or scales. It’s boring and holds back my personal expression’.

This was and is complete bollocks.

Understanding the structure of how music is made doesn’t hold you back, it gives you the tools to express yourself more freely.

I think the same is true of storytelling. Following proven frameworks gives us a way to take our ideas and form them into a structure that makes sense. It pushes us to take our characters and stories in our novels to places we might not think of that ultimately resonate with our readers.

You want to take people on a satisfying emotional journey, so why not look at a map?

There’s lots of storytelling theory out there and you can dig into it as much or as little as you like, but I think it’s definitely worth going there. And these principles apply just as much to other forms of storytelling like presentations and articles. There are tonnes of models out there, but a couple of frameworks you night want to start with if you haven’t studied them already are…

1. Plot types - there are only so many types of stories, each with their own formulas, just told again and again in different ways (overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return etc). Framing your story around one of these plot types, even loosely, might give it greater focus and relevance

2. The three act structure - a widely accepted model for narrative structure with plenty of guidance and inspiration for how you move through the 3 acts, with an inciting incident, rising tension, climax and then denouement. It can shape a novel but even shorter pieces of communication can follow a similar pattern.

   

Bringing the two together

I’m an analyst and structural thinker at heart so a top down approach feels more natural for me. The problem is you can’t treat creative writing like a formula for success, these frameworks aid and stimulate creativity, they don’t replace it.

I think it’s when you combine a bottom up and top down approach that things really come together. When you’re letting your characters and subconscious run free, but within the bounds of a proven structure

This makes me think of nature… so rich and wonderfully complex, but not entirely random. There’s an underlying structure there that helps you understand why some things in nature are the way they are (look into the golden ratio if you haven’t already).

Of course it’s also true that rules are made to be broken and there will likely be many examples of successful stories that ignore or subvert these story frameworks. But the point is that the writer who shaped them will likely know these frameworks inside out and understand when and why they are ignoring and subverting them for great effect. It helps to know the rules first if you want to go on and break them.

Hopefully there are some interesting ideas in here for your own storytelling, whatever form it takes.

That’s it, hope that was interesting. Any comments or questions let me know.

Jonathan

---

---

Sharing the love

If you know anyone else who would like my writing please share…

Or send them this link to Chapter 1 - https://justbeyondordinary.substack.com/p/chapter-1-is-live

Thanks!

---