Idea Generating Part 3

Now in previous posts we discussed digital apps and also an example of an actual story generating book that works like those digital apps to provide you with prompts for new plots or interesting characters that could lead to new story ideas.  Also, we touched upon some other ways to generate ideas, such as looking at photographs or paintings.

Using photographs or paintings is a frequent method I use to generate ideas.  In fact, my novel "One Second Before Awakening" was created using this method by taking several paintings, all rendered by Salvador Dali, and creating an entire story line.  I initially started with a single painting.  I viewed the painting without researching anything about what the artist claimed they were trying to express.  I purposely did not research what art critics or scholars had to say about what the painting meant.  I simply looked at the image and then imagined what might be going on within the image Dali had painted.  You see, by ignoring what Dali stated the image was representing, and what the critics and scholars thought it represented, it left my mind open to develop whatever scenario I felt plausible.

The painting I chose was "The Flight of Bee Around A Pomegranate, One Second Before Awakening", which is classic Dali.  Check out this image and you will see that this painting presented a bit of a challenge to write something that could suspend disbelief, yet provided for the much needed immediate action often required when beginning a story.

 



 

 

What I came up with was a detailed description of the painting with all the action derived from this very active rendering.  The opening scene of the story came from there wherein I composed an ordinary man finding himself thrust into the dimension of the painting as if it were no longer a painting, but a very real place.  He is instantly confronted by the two leaping tigers, which he manages to fight off by using the rifle shown in the painting, and he rescues the naked woman by hitching a ride on the elephant with the elongated legs that is in the background of the painting.  This sets up everything else that occurs in the novel.

I used this approach with each chapter of the novel, picking several Dali paintings from which I derived different scenes.  To this day I do not understand how exactly it happened.  I just picked some very interesting paintings, and then over time arranged those paintings into a particular order to create a complex plot.  Characters, settings, themes, symbolism, and the message behind the novel all developed rather extemporaneously when my creative mind worked at the subconscious level upon the images I had picked.  The end result was a richly detailed, deeply symbolic allegorical tale where the following underlying philosophical question was discussed:  Is our lives based upon pre-destiny or free-will?  Not a bad start for something that started with a painting of two tigers leaping from the mouth of a giant fish and appearing as if they are about to pounce upon a helpless woman lying upon a rocky island in the middle of the ocean.

I suggest you try this approach of using photos or paintings to generate story ideas.  Play around with it to see what happens.  It doesn't have to be something like a surreal Dali painting.  It could be something as simple as a photograph of a bicycle.  Describe what is in the photo, and just start writing.  All that might come of it could be a narrative about a bicycle just sitting there, but then something altogether different could emerge from your subconscious.  You will never know until you at least give a try.