Story Ideas: The two most important words are “what if”?

There has been a phenomenal response to “Go Into The Story: The Quest” whereby I am offering the opportunity for up to four aspiring screenwriters to do a 24-week online screenwriting workshop with me as your mentor: 8 weeks of intensive screenwriting theory, 6 weeks of story prep, and 10 weeks of writing a first draft. All of that for free.

Since I will be accepting submissions [you can learn everything you need to know about that process here] through Friday, June 8, I thought I would do a few posts between now and then about generating story concepts, an opportunity for us to engage in a conversation so all of us may raise our game because story ideas are critical to a spec script’s marketability.

The two most important words I know in the process of generating story ideas are these: what if? Here is an example from screenwriter James V. Hart:

“The secret, the great key to writing Hook, came from my son. When he was six, he asked the question, ‘What if Peter Pan grew up?’ I had been trying to find a new way into the famous ‘boy who wouldn’t grow up’ tale, and our son gave me the key.”

What if Peter Pan grew up?

Here’s another example from screenwriter Bob Gale:

The inspiration for making the movie, for coming up with the story [Back to the Future] is that I was visiting my parents in the summer of 1980, from St. Louis Missouri, and I found my father’s high-school yearbook in the basement. I’m thumbing through it and I find out that my father was the president of his graduating class, which I was completely unaware of. So there’s a picture of my dad, 18-years-old, and I’m thinking about the president of my graduating class, who was someone I would have had nothing to do with. He was one of these “Ra-Ra” political guys, he was probably Al Gore or something. Captain of the debate team, all this stuff. So the question came up in my head, ‘gee, if I had gone to school with my dad would I have been friends with him?’ That was where the light bulb went off.”

What if I had gone to school with my dad?

One more example: I read a piece recently about screenwriter Evan Daugherty who sold the spec script Snow White and the Huntsman for over $3M. Where did that story idea derive? He wondered why didn’t the huntsman kill Snow White after the Queen ordered him to take her away into the forest and dispatch her.

What if I told the story of Snow White from the Huntsman’s perspective?

So every day as you try to conjure story ideas — and you should spend at least 10–15 minutes each day doing that — use these powerful words what if to spark your imagination.

Who knows. Maybe you’ll come up with something like, “What if Abraham Lincoln was a vampire hunter?”

Tomorrow I’ll have another tip to help you generate story ideas.

For all the information you need about “The Quest,” go here.

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