Greater Los Angles Writers Conference

Finding the Heart of Your Story:
Shaping Your Original Idea
Greater Los Angles Writers Conference
August 6, 2021
George Galdorisi

This presentation will help attendees explore the most basic –
yet most important – element of the writing craft, the original
idea that is the essence of a story. We will examine how
generating an original idea works for both fiction and non-
fiction, deep-dive into where original ideas come from, and then
progress to how to shape that kernel of an idea into novel,
narrative non-fiction, or screenplay.

5
Distribution Statement A: Approved for
public release; distribution is unlimited.

A Few Preliminaries….
• Three promises:
– This will be a focused session geared to ensuring success
– We’ll learn something…and we’ll have fun
– You’ll have access to these slides…take notes…or not….
• Three assumptions:
– You all are interested in nurturing your story idea
– You would like to turn your idea into a novel or….
– You didn’t wake up last Tuesday morning with this notion
• And a word about Power Point….

• Your Original Idea: The Spark That Starts the Process
• Fanning the Flame: From a Spark to a Fire
• Focusing Your Idea: Divergent to Convergent
• Is It Just a Story – Or Something More?
• Turing the Fire Into a Narrative
• Taming the Beast and Writing Your Novel

• Your Original Idea: Spark That Starts the Process
• Fanning the Flame: From a Spark to a Fire
• Focusing Your Idea: Divergent to Convergent
• Is It Just a Story – Or Something More?
• Turing the Fire Into a Narrative
• Taming the Beast and Writing Your Novel

Your Original Idea:
The Spark That Starts the Process
• The coolest thing about writing!
• Only you are the steward of your original idea
• Can you state your idea in one sentence?
• Ideas can be absolutely anything
• Outward vs. inward focus
• A few examples

Only You Are the Steward of Your Original Idea
• It is your idea and your idea alone
• You have to nurture it, don’t share it yet
• It is the foundation of your book
• Above all else, it is the spark of inspiration for you
• Don’t do too much, let it germinate
• Come up with another idea, is the first still the best?

Ideas Can Be Absolutely Anything
• A high concept
• A theme
• A plot
• A character
• A what if
• A setting or scene

Outward vs. Inward Focus
• A situation idea is outward focused
• Your situation idea focuses on a plot and a problem
• A character idea is inward focused
• Your character idea focuses on character and intent
• The key to success is to have your book do both

Ideas Can Be A High Concept
• In a post-apocalyptic world, what if the top .1% is
delineated by length of life rather than wealth?
• Burners

Ideas Can Be A Theme
• What is more important? Honor or loyalty?
• Duty, Honor, Country

Ideas Can Be A Plot
• On the same day, six different years, the Time Patrol
must keep the shadow from changing our timeline.
• Time Patrol

Ideas Can Be A Character
• A housewife and female assassin must uncover the
truth of the men in their lives in order to uncover
their destiny.
• Bodyguard of Lies

Ideas Can Be A What If
• What if people going into the Witness Protection
Program really disappear?
• Cut Out

Ideas Can Be A Setting or Scene
• An international treaty bans weapons in Antarctica:
What if the U.S. put nuclear weapons there and lost
track of them?
• Eternity Base

Let’s look at five more examples

New York Times, Publisher’s
Weekly & USA Today Best-
Seller!
What if a prince in a Middle
Eastern country wanted to get
the United States to attack
another country so his
country could later win a fight
with that country?

New York Times, Publisher’s
Weekly & USA Today Best-
Seller!
How does the commanding
officer of a U.S. Navy ship
keep the North Koreans from
capturing her crew after they
run aground on a small island
after losing a gun battle with
North Korean ships?

First book of the Rick Holden Thriller
Series - from Braveship Books
What if the most senior officers in the
United States military are so
dissatisfied with the President that
they concoct a scheme to have the
President direct a major military
operation, and then have that
operation fail in order to drive the
President out of office?

Second book of the Rick Holden
Thriller Series - from
Braveship Books
What if the Islamic Republic of
Iran is killing Americans in
terrorist attacks and the United
States is not taking action? And
what if a carrier strike group
commander with a wide array of
strike assets at his disposal
decides to create and incident
that has Iran’s fingerprints all over
it and uses this as an excuse to
extract his own vengeance on
Iran? Can he be stopped?

Third book of the Rick Holden
Thriller Series - from
Braveship Books
What happens if Vladimir Putin
decides to use the fulcrum of
Central Europe to threaten
Western Europe through a series
of lethal and effective attacks on
U.S. and European energy
sources? Can Putin and his rogue
nation be thwarted through the
combined efforts of EU and US
political and military might?

Fanning the Flame: From a Spark to a Fire
• Is your idea different?
• No? Now what?
• Every idea has been done before
• “It’s been done before” is the first hurdle
• Check out the Internet Movie Database for log lines
• Try Kipling

Can You State Your Idea In One Sentence?
• If you can’t do this, start over and find a new one
• This one sentence ignites your creative focus
• It is often the core of the pitch to sell your book
• Remembering just one sentence keeps you focused

My fabulous story idea….
…in just one sentence?

“Deconstructing” a Movie Log Line
The subject of the sentence will describe (1) an
imperfect but passionate and active protagonist. The
verb will depict (2) the battle. And the direct object will
describe (3) an insurmountable antagonist who tries to
stop the protagonist from reaching (4) a physical goal
on account of (5) the stakes, if the goal is not reached.

“Deconstructing” Your Idea:
Putting It On Trial for It’s Life
• Is there a plot?
• Are there a protagonist and an antagonist?
• Is the verb in your idea an active one?
• Is there an inherent conflict that needs to be solved?

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Rudyard Kipling
The Elephant’s Child

Fanning the Flame: From a Spark to a Fire
• Since every idea has been done before, now what?
• Your idea turns into a story as you fan the flame
• Fan the flame with Kipling’s help:
– What? Plot
– Who? Characters
– Why? What’s at stake
– Where and When? Setting
– How? Beginning, Middle, and End
• Your idea won’t change
• You are going to do it differently

Focusing Your Idea: Divergent to Convergent
• Spend a lot of time on divergent thinking
• Save plenty of time for convergent thinking

Dean Koontz
On Generating New Story Ideas
• Read!
• Write!
• Tickle the imagination and generate story ideas by
playing around with exotic titles
• Type out a bunch of narrative hooks and find one
that is intriguing
• Prime the idea pump by building up a couple of
characters in enormous detail
• Whatever you write, you must begin your novel by
plunging the hero or heroine into terrible trouble

The Classic Plot
• The writer introduces a hero or heroine who has just been –
or is about to be – plunged into terrible trouble
• The hero or heroine attempts to solve his or her problem but
only slips deeper into trouble
• As they try to climb out of the hole they’re in, complications
arise, each more terrible than the one before, until the
situation could not become more hopeless, then one final
unthinkable complication arises and makes matters worse.
• At last, deeply affected and changed by his awful experiences
and intolerable circumstances, the hero learns something
about himself and the human condition. He then understands
what he must do to get out of the dangerous situation in
which he has wound up. He takes the necessary actions and
either succeeds or fails, succeeding more often than not.

Is It Just a Story –
Or Something More?
• The king died and then the queen died.
– A story
• The king died and then the queen died of grief.
– A plot
• The queen died, and no one knew why, until it was
discovered that it was through grief at the death of
the king.
– A mystery

Is It Just a Story – Or Something More?
• What are you selling?
• The “Intent”
– The “why” behind the “what”
– What do you want the reader to feel?
– Is there a beginning, middle and end?
– The payoff to the reader is the resolution
• The “Shiver”
– What excites you about your idea?
– What will excite those you tell it to?
– Is there emotion and passion?
– Can your reader relate to your plot and your characters?

Turing the Fire Into a Narrative
• Before you start slamming together sentences:
– Treatment
– Narrative Outline
• An enormous amount of work – why do it:
– You have to convince yourself it’s a book
– You may have to convince others
– A surefire way to avoid writer’s block
– You’re not chained to it – things happen

Let’s Deconstruct
a Novel Treatment
• Cover
• Organization
• Organizing Impulse and High Concept
• The “Old” OpCenter Dies
• The “New” OpCenter is Born
• New Character Details
– Preamble
– Those who spend a great deal of time
physically at OpCenter
– Those who deal with crises overseas
in each scenario
– Those who deal with crises
domestically in each scenario
• OpCenter Plot and Scenario Plan
– Preamble
– Short Plot Synopsis
• For us, this was 17,000+ words

Let’s Deconstruct
a Narrative Outline
• Cover
• Front matter
• Chapter summaries
– Separate sections
– One or two paragraphs per
section
• Epilogue
• For us, this was 19,000+
words

Characterization
Plotting
Action
You must do
all three well!

James Hall – Hit Lit
A Plot Guide
• Gone with the Wind
• Peyton Place
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Valley of the Dolls
• The Godfather
• The Exorcist
• Jaws
• The Dead Zone
• The Hunt for Red October
• The Firm
• The Bridges of Madison County
• The Da Vinci Code

James Hall – Hit Lit
A Characterization Guide
• Gone with the Wind
• Peyton Place
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Valley of the Dolls
• The Godfather
• The Exorcist
• Jaws
• The Dead Zone
• The Hunt for Red October
• The Firm
• The Bridges of Madison County
• The Da Vinci Code

“I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I
try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”
Tom Clancy

What About Action?
• Action evolves naturally from the plot
• There is no formula for having action in your novel
• As Clancy said, don’t overthink the action
• That said, here are some things to consider:
– Different kinds of novels lend themselves to more or less
– Write all the action you can – then consider Goldilocks
– If riveting, hold-your-breath action is anywhere – up front
– Balance scene and summary to bound action scenes

Mr. Clancy said none of his success came easily, and he
would remind aspiring writers of that when he spoke to
them. “I tell them you learn to write the same way you
learn to play golf,” he once said. “You do it, and keep
doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think
something mystical happens to you, that maybe the
muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely
inspired — it’s hard work.”
Tom Clancy
Quoted in the New York Times
October 2, 2013

A Word About Surveys:
Comments Typically Come in Three Types
• You rocked my world and my life is now changed
forever for the better – I’m a completely new person
• I’d rather have a root canal than have to sit through
this again – and I think you should pay for it
• I got something (a lot, a little) out of this talk, but if
the writer does this next year, he should:
– Do more of….
– Do less of….
– Go faster….
– Go slower….
– ????

Slides and Resources Posted:
http://www.georgegaldorisi.com/
Email Address
george@georgegaldorisi.com

Greater Los Angles Writers Conference

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