Award-winning novelist Vincent H. O'Neil's workshop on continuing to generate new ideas (and better ones) throughout a writing project. Presented at the Sleuthfest mystery convention in Boca Raton, Florida in 2017. A live audio version of this workshop, along with the live audio for three more of the presentations I have posted on this site, are available for purchase from VW Tapes: Conference & Seminar Recording. If the link below doesn't work, please go to the VW Tapes webpage and type my name in the Search box. http://vwtapes.com/search.aspx?find=Vincent%20O'Neil&fbclid=IwAR0SkwWW5izLbBFvZHKhqOI953GMXhhsFBsg749We3dvq4-43BcFj_S-aMU

1. The Never-ending
Brainstorm
Taking your inspiration from a gentle breeze
to a full-blown hurricane
Vincent H. O’Neil (aka Henry V. O’Neil)
www.vincenthoneil.com

2. Mystery and Horror as Vincent H. O’Neil
The Frank Cole / Exile Mystery Series
Supernatural HorrorTheater Mystery Mystery Anthology

3. Military Science Fiction
as Henry V. O’Neil
www.vincenthoneil.com

4. Purpose
Ever get halfway through writing a story
and then think of a better way to tell it?
That might be because brainstorming isn’t
just something we do in the planning
phase:
Brainstorming is an ongoing process

5. Presentation Outline
• Standard brainstorming
• Developing the initial ideas
• Digging deeper
• Revisiting the story
• Other techniques

6. Brainstorming
• Even if you have a full-blown story in your
head, ready to be written, take the time to
brainstorm it
• Brainstorming lets one good idea lead to
another
• It really pays off

7. Standard Brainstorming
• Do some research (if applicable)
• Write phrases and words on a sheet /
sheets of paper in random order
• Jot down everything that comes to mind,
no matter how irrelevant it might seem
• Don’t try to connect the ideas yet

8. Example Topic
In this presentation, the example topic is a
murder mystery involving a supernatural
entity (helping solve the crime, suggesting
the crime, whatever)
The resulting short story, “Secret
Suggestion”, can be found in my mystery
anthology Crime Capsules

9. Brainstorming: Include everything
Ghost
Entity
Suggestion
Emotion
Past
Communication Entity helps or hinders?
Malevolent?
Detective a psychic?
Detective enlists a psychic?
Sympathetic character?
Insane? Afraid going insane?
Gender?
Ghost’s m
otivation?
Moment of awareness?

10. Associate Some of the Ideas
Ghost
Entity
Suggestion
Emotion
Past
Communication
Entity helps or hinders?
Malevolent?
Detective a psychic?
Detective enlists a psychic?
Sympathetic character?
Insane? Afraid going insane?
Gender? Ghost’s m
otivation?
Moment of awareness?
Spirit

11. Add Different Thoughts as They Appear
Ghost
Entity
Suggestion
Emotion
Past
Communication
Entity helps or hinders?
Malevolent?
Detective a psychic?
Detective enlists a psychic?
Sympathetic character(s)?
Insane? Afraid going insane?
Gender? Ghost’s m
otivation?
Moment of awareness?
Gender?
The detective?
The victim?
The entity?
THESE ARE GOOD FOR
SUSPENSE; DON’T
ANSWER THEM RIGHT
AWAY
DETECTIVE
VISITS A
PSYCHIATRIST?
Psychiatrist?
Spirit
Synonyms

12. 5 Human
Senses
Sight Sound
Touch
Taste
Smell
Example: The Diagram Approach
Pick an aspect of the story and write out various options.
In this example, we ponder the ghost’s ability to communicate
Then expand on them

13. 5 Senses
Sight Sound
Touch
Taste
Smell
Transmitted memory
Blurred vision
Hallucinations
Tricks of memory
Voice
Something that reminds
detective of another case
Hot / cold
Skin crawling
Unfamiliar taste
AdrenalineMetallic
Unfamiliar smell
Smoke Cologne /perfume
Supernatural Communication
Imagined communication?
Words, but not heard. Sensed, but not felt

14. Developing the Initial Ideas
Take the results of the first rounds
of brainstorming and start
exploring the different questions
that they raise

15. Communication explored --
How could the entity solve the case?
• Saw it happen
• Did something similar in life
• Figures it out from what the detective knows / learns
• Has observed a LOT of murder investigations over the years
• Maybe saw it happen but still doesn’t know who did it
• Maybe knows who did it but just won’t tell (refuses to make it easy)
Note how this opens up entire avenues for telling the story . . .

16. Connection -- the entity and the detective?
The Ghost
and
Mr. Detective
Direct – ancestor
(or is that a lie?) Indirect – used to
be a cop
Direct – can tell
the detective
what it sees
Direct but unusual –
this is the first detective
it’s encountered who
was receptive
Indirect – it’s attracted to
murder scenes (ghosts
attracted to the things
they enjoyed in life)

17. What is (was) the entity?
• A murderer
• A sadist
• A cop
• A judge
• Someone who enjoyed games or puzzles
• Maybe we don’t find out this time around
Brainstorming can provide
ideas for later stories too

18. What could the entity tell the detective?
• Killer’s motive—communicate by emotion?
• Remind the detective of one suspect over and over
• Point toward a similar case in history
• A case the detective could NOT know
• Maybe the entity avoids a case the detective
MIGHT know (which could allow the detective to
ignore the message, or its source, at first)
This idea leaves lots
of room to run
News stories / books /
flipping pages

19. How does the entity communicate?
Emotion:
Rage
Jealousy
Love
Hate
Fear
Gratification
Joy
Accomplishment
Greed
Desire
Anticipation
When does it first communicate?
Crime scene?
After it’s followed the detective?
At a revisit to the crime scene?
When interviewing someone involved in
the killing?
Does the entity follow the killer
and feed off the dark emotion?
Did it want to communicate with the killer?
Do its suggestions become a problem for
the detective? (dark suggestions)
A whole new idea
involving the killer

20. Why would it help
solve the case?
Malice (chance to send
someone to jail) Jealousy – didn’t get
away with its own crimes
Likes challenges
Wants to helpEnjoys causing pain
The entity’s motivation
Likes control
(torments the detective)
Note how each of these leads to a VERY different story . . .

21. Digging Deeper
Right about now you’re starting to
piece the results together into a
story line.
Don’t stop there.

22. The Detective
Ancestor a seer?
Able to experience the
killer’s feelings?
So focused on the case
that the detective missed
the first communication?
Merely a sympatheticinterrogator?
Unaware of psychic
power?
Detective’s Sensitivity
Used psychic power
on other cases?
A good detective might seek out an expert on the topic . . .

23. The Psychic
Says spirits pursue the
things they enjoyed in life
Suspects the detective is
someone a spirit would
find sensitive
Tells detective that
spirits feel comfortable
around him / her
Asks questions which
would indicate if the
detective had previous
supernatural experiences
The Psychic
Could the Psychic
have selfish motives?
And if the detective would go see a psychic . . .

24. Detective goes to a psychiatrist
• Concerned about possibly going insane
• Already saw a psychic (psychiatrist is skeptical)
• Collecting information (psychiatrist senses this)
• Discusses strange sensations (anger, jealousy)
at crime scene and during interviews
• Between them, the psychiatrist and the detective
come up with a reasonable answer for everything
Then SOMETHING happens . . .

25. Revisit the Story
You’re well along now. You’ve got
a storyline going from beginning
to middle to end. You’re even
starting to fill in the blanks.
Time to reconsider.

26. What about those dark suggestions?
• Can’t we do more with the suggestions?
• Could the entity overdo it? Bleed-over?
• When they arrest the killer, the entity pushes
the detective to kill him / her?
• Psychic suggests that the entity couldn’t communicate
with the killer; it felt his emotion but couldn’t motivate
him / her to kill again (otherwise, why help the detective?)
Suggested earlier

27. At Murder Scene
Detective never felt
anything like this before
Conflicting emotions at first
Anger
Resentment
Jealousy
Does the entitywant the detective toKNOW it’s acommunication?Entity trying to
communicate; gauges
reaction
Emotions communicated to the detective
Wonders where
these feelings are
coming from
The message might not be clear at first.
And the entity might not know what it’s doing, either.

28. At the Office
Resentment toward
boss If the detective DOESN’T
like the boss, the message
might get lost
Maybe feels it more
intensely than usual,
or when the boss is
trying to be nice
The Feelings Bleed Over
The detective likes
the boss, so this
is troublesome
Exploring how this would work . . .

29. The Widow
Maybe the detective
feels nothing at all?
Widow is actually grieving
because she cheated
Widow lies aboutthe affair
Detective notices that
it’s easy to concentrate
when interviewing the widow
Interviewing the Widow
The entity isn’t
pointing the detective
at the widow
The psychiatrist can point at this to disprove the
detective’s theory of supernatural communication

30. The PI
Just hired?
Or knows a lot?
Victim met with his lawyer about
divorcing his wife if the PI ended
up finding something
Complication: The Private Investigator
Hired to follow
the wife
PI tells the police
the dead man suspected
his wife was cheating
An outside player, about whom the police initially know
nothing, provides motive for suspecting the widow

31. Other Techniques
The ‘Making Of’ Approach:
Imagine you’re being interviewed
on a variety of topics, (characters,
plot twists, settings, events,
intentions) as if it’s a ‘Making of’
featurette—what are your answers?

32. The ‘Making Of’ Approach
The
Setting
“I imagined the town as a living thing, a body
with a fatal illness . . .”
The
Tool
“At first the gun was just the murder weapon,
but then I asked, ‘Where would this average
guy GET an untraceable gun?’”
“I wanted the killing to be simple . . .
elemental . . . which supported the ghost
communicating through emotion . . .”
The
Murder

33. The ‘Decision Tree’ Approach
Start with
the big
ones
Write out the pluses and minuses of the big decisions:
-1st
person versus 3rd person
-‘Whodunnit’ versus a story wrapped around a murder
A little later
A little more specific (once you have some ideas):
-The murder weapon: Found / not found
-Witnesses: Saw but won’t talk / saw but undiscovered
Circle back and reconsider:
-What if they DID find the murder weapon?
-What if there were no witnesses? (Play with this;
what could happen if there were no witnesses at first, but then
they found one?)
Much later
You have LOTS of choices . . .

34. Be the Director
• Treat each scene as live rehearsal with actors
• Get the most out of it (action, thrills, drama)
• Hit the high notes in your story
• Imagine you’re discussing a scene with actors
playing the different characters
Choices, actions, revelations
• Imagine you're convincing an actor to play
one of the characters
Motivations, behaviors, big moments

35. Research as Inspiration
• The Complete Idiot’s Guides
• YouTube (how-to’s, interviews, music)
• Online imagery (Google, Bing, etc.)
• Keep your mind open to what these
sources are suggesting to you

36. Mystery and Horror as Vincent H. O’Neil
The Frank Cole / Exile Mystery Series
Supernatural HorrorTheater Mystery Mystery Anthology

37. Military Science Fiction
as Henry V. O’Neil
www.vincenthoneil.com