Stagnant Ideas

[Fubsy]

I love coming up with new ideas for stories or RPs. Unfortunately, a frequent problem I have is properly developing said ideas. It's one of the many reasons I've never GMed before. As much as I'd like for one to become a tangible world that I can bring to life through writing, I always come up with the same problems: the world is too complicated, there's too many plot holes, this contradicts that, etc. In the end up, I just stuff the idea in an evergrowing pickle pit of old, rotten thoughts. It's frustrating as hell honestly, and I just wanna stop adding to the idea graveyard.

So, how do y'all develop ideas for stories? Any tips?

[Shoryu Magami]

This is a thread I could go into a very large amount of detail in, but it's been progressively drawn to my attention that a lot of (though not all) people here don't appreciate the "long-winded" walls of text I toss out in order to make sure my responses are detailed and thorough.

I will say that there's nothing wrong with having a complicated world (contrary to some belief, since whether this is right or wrong is entirely subjective) in my eyes, so long as you can avoid having plot holes and contradictions; a good portion of the notes I have for my main story project are centred around preventing these sorts of problems.

If you'd like excessive detail in the form of a much bigger response, I'd like to request you either ask me over PM or request for it here directly by giving me the basic idea of the style/genre/etc of story that you would want to create a world around; it's much easier to tell you how you could approach an idea if I have some sort of premise for it.

What I will make a point of regarding the thread topic is this; the concept of a "stagnant" idea is not only a matter of opinion and preference, but there's also no such thing are true one hundred percent "originality", so I think you should focus less on having a new idea and more on having a good (well thought out) idea. Everything draws its inspiration from something; for example, many people on this very website frequently bash anime like a bunch of blind bigots despite the genre inspiring and contributing to a vast amount of art and fiction; whether those bashing it are people who aren't able to work that out or are those who simply choose to ignore it out of self-ordained ignorance is entirely a matter of the individual though. Everything draws inspiration from something; the idea of pantheons of gods existed in mythology long before it did in fiction.

It might seem as though I'm somewhat stating the obvious with this diatribe, but the point I'm trying to make is that there's no such thing as actually having a completely original idea. What actually defines "originality" is taking a concept that already exists and doing something creative and interesting with it. The idea itself is seldom ever the problem, but rather how it's presented. Therefore, I don't think you should focus on whether or not your idea is completely new or not; an overt fixation on originality can actually hinder a person's work. While my own project is very unique in some ways I do not create my world deliberately trying to be different; if the ideas that are appealing to me happen to be unique then fair enough, but my goal is to write them well and make sure they are engaging, compelling, thorough, deep, complex, and detailed; all things which are more important than being "fresh".

[BrokenPromise]

So, how do y'all develop ideas for stories? Any tips?

@Fubsy

I question every aspect of the story, and I let those answers develop the story.

I always come up with the same problems: the world is too complicated, there's too many plot holes

@Fubsy

Those problems present questions, and the answers write your story.
.
.
.
.
.

"This guy and girl need to love each other 'that' way, but they can't because they are siblings... and incest is gross! How can I do this?"

One can be adopted.

"The family is poor and can barely feed one child. why would he adopt?"

The family was paid by royalty to care for a child as his own.

"But the father HATES royalty, he'd sooner die than accept money from them. Why would he do that?"

Because the child is that of a concubine, one he use to love very much before the king enslaved her. She stole as much gold from the kingdom as she could carry and headed back to the father. Between the hard trip to the father and giving birth, she died. His hatred for royalty actually stemmed from the concubine's act of selflessness, and he hates them for what they did to his previous lover.

"i thought you said he was paid by royalty?"

That's just what he told his current wife to keep her happy. She wouldn't like to think they were surviving because of the work of her husband's old flame."

"...That's actually pretty good."

Thanks, It was your questions though.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

By breaking apart a problem into smaller questions, you can easily answer and sew them together to form an ultimate solution. And that solution is your story. Things can get a bit more tricky when you try to sew other players into your story, but the process is the same.

[Shoryu Magami]

I was more or less waiting for another member to post here before I gave you a second response, in order to avoid creating a single post that was really long; even if it's rather nonsensical considering this is a site for writing and people should learn how to read if they're going to involve themselves in play-by-post (as I was insinuating in my first post), but c'est la vie.

Most of my comments in the initial post were in direct response to the title of this thread (which I considered the primary question due to it being the title). Now that I've given you my thoughts on "stagnant ideas", but give you a little bit of an idea of my thoughts on the question at the end of your post. I would've in the previous post, but "walls of text" are bad apparently (a lot of role-players must hate reading novels). I've got a lot going on right now and I need to get back to it, so I plan on keeping this shorter than I usually would.

I'm going into only three aspects of writing in this post, and only touching on them a little. For the sake of ease of use, I'm putting my thoughts into point form, so here goes:

• Project Size: If the story you have in mind is simplistic or easy to work with, you'll usually be able to solve most of your problems just by breaking up the ideas into smaller questions and finding solutions to them. Simplification works wonders with a simplistic story. However, if the project is a lot bigger (like my main one is) then this sort of thing will become less useful since you'll need to manage a lot more information. I suggest creating a database or "wikia" if you intend to work with a much larger project, and make sure that you have notes categorized by topics.
  
  Depending on how big the story you have in mind is, you might also want to invest in creating a timeline as I have, especially if the story you have in mind involves as complex backstory and history involving multiple characters. I actually make a point of dating every single chapter of my story (using the same method I do in my bio) at the beginning in order to show exactly where everything happens. This prevents jigsaw puzzle problems and makes it easier for readers to understand and piece together my story. Having a timeline makes it very easy to use this dating system, though that sort of system is not needed with a more simplistic story, but based on your initial post it sounds like you want to be complicated (which is a great thing, if done well).

• The Details: I'll say this again, even though many people don't like how detailed I can get in discussions, writing a well thought out story is entirely in the details no different to how giving a successful debate is about scrutinizing the details. You need to question every facet of your project and every detail of the setting in order to make things more fleshed out. When I work on a project, every single character is fleshed out in vivid detail (no matter how minor they are) and every element of the world is detailed and thorough. I find the biggest problem that people have when it comes to writing a compelling story without any plot holes (a trap that many writers fall into) is that they focus too much on building just the story and not enough time building the characters, concepts, and setting itself.
  
  I actually spend a fair bit of time supporting other writers by pointing out plot holes and contradictions that they failed to see, and I can tell you that in every case the problems came up as a result of them missing details and not being thorough enough with questions regarding the characters or setting, not so much the narrative itself. A large number of works of fiction, even some of the most highly renowned, actually carry notable plot holes that the readers usually just choose to ignore or don't notice (some of those who do notice them parody them on the internet), but all of these contradictions could be avoided if the details had been not only questioned but fleshed out more thoroughly to create a more realistic work.

• Objectivity and Subjectivity: This may seem like a weird topic to bring up, but a lot of writers, especially those who are role-players and not writers outside of that (you need to be a writer to be a successful GM, not just a role-player), but understanding how to write from the perspective of the world as a whole and understanding how to write from the perspective of a specific character are both important skills to creating stories, and neither can succeed independent of the other.
  
  Most role-players are used to writing from a single perspective in a story, which by its very definition is only one set of eyes out of billions. Learning to see the story from the eyes of every character, including the eyes of characters who could be introduced through people joining your role-play, is important. Due to this, having an objective understanding of your entire world and setting that doesn't centre around one character's perspective is useful, which is one of the reasons why I suggest that people focus more on building their world rather than simply writing the story.