Stories are nearly always about problems. Some stories are about very small problems. And some stories are about really big problems.
My very first novel – Dr Boogaloo and The Girl Who Lost Her Laughter – was about a girl with a very big problem which you can probably guess from the title. Her big problem created lots of other problems too. These illustrations from Daniel Gray-Barnett illustrate some of them beautifully.
Now problems basically relate to characters. And we can find out about our character’s problems by being curious. And that involves asking lots of questions about our characters.
What does this character WANT? What does this character FEAR? And why?
Let’s use our clumsy, goofy butterfly who prefers to walk as an example.
Why doesn’t she fly?
Does she want to be different? Is she scared of heights?
Do people mistake her for some weird bug?
Is she left out of all the butterfly games?
Some butterflies migrate. How is our butterfly going to keep up? Is she lonely?
Why not have a go at thinking up some problems or fears for your characters. Don’t worry if your ideas are good or bad. Don’t worry if they’re stupid. Maybe in ten ideas, there’ll be one good one. Maybe you have to write twenty ideas before you come up with one good one. Doesn’t matter. You just chuck the stupid ones in the bin. My Bin is full to the brim with STUPID IDEAS.
Another writing tip; if you jot down ideas quickly without thinking too much, you might find it improves your hit rate. When we write fast, often we can leave our ‘thinking brain’ behind and let our ‘magical brain’ or ‘creative brain’ take over. Your ‘thinking brain’ will never come up with ideas as good as your ‘magical brain’, trust me.
And once again, why not try FLIPPING those wants and fears.
What does a hamster want? Lettuce? What about a pair of high heels instead?
What’s a postman usually afraid of? Dogs? Maybe he’s afraid of letterboxes?
If you have already created an unexpected character, sometimes it can be really fun to give them a very everyday or ordinary problem. For example, perhaps our butterfly is always losing her shoes?
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