THE “WHAT IF” TECHNIQUE

 

 

If faced with writer's block, one twisted little way to squeeze a story out of your subconscious is the "What If" technique. Quite a few of my short stories came in being this way. The core part of this technique's to look at something in the real world and ask yourself "What if . . . . ?"

 

It's a simple, effective way to come up with a story. Odds are you've seen a movie or read a book based on a "What if" scenario. Some examples:

 

Think of Underworld (a classic movie): "What if vampires and werewolves had a war?"

 

Then there was Saving Private Ryan: "What if 8 soldiers are sent into insanely-hostile territory to rescue 1 soldier – a mere private, no less?"

 

And, of course, there's Kick-Ass: "What if a comic book geek decided to become a vigilante 'super hero': with no powers, fancy gadgets, or even training?"

 

The advantages of the "What if" are powerful. For one thing, you give your story an instant, solid foundation to build upon. Second, you can explain an idea a lot faster to someone else through a "What if" – which helps when dealing with potential buyers with short attention spans.

 

Now, how do you mine a good, solid "What if" that no one else has gotten to yet? Just look around your everyday existence and let your creativity hunt one down. Odds are you're sitting on top of one and don't even know it. And they can come from anywhere.

 

Just of thinking of stuff I've seen this week, here are some "What if" moments for myself:

 

1. I saw a guy with a "Will Work For Food" sign (as I'm sure we all have). But what if someone came across a homeless man with a slightly different sign. Maybe the sign says: "Will Kill For Food"? You give him a ham sandwich and the name of your annoying next-door neighbor, just as a joke. And the next day, your neighbor is dead. And when you come across that wino's path, he thanks for sandwich . . . with a strange, crazy grin on his face.

    

2. It's snowing like crazy around where I live, in post-holiday January. Hmm. Let me run with this a bit . . . What if you found yourself Christmas shopping in the midst of a zombie apocalypse? Your kids are all bummed out about having to stay hidden, seeing as zombies are all over the place. And you're dumb enough to risk your life to give 'em some holiday cheer. So you grab a machete, some 12-gauge rounds, and stroll off – through a raging blizzard – to a long-abandoned Wal-Mart ('cause they have everything).

 

1. Some colleagues at my job kidnapped a stuffed dog and demanded a plate of cookies as a ransom. One of the ransom demands was left as a voicemail, using an iPhone app that lets you talk in a Darth Vader voice (kinda' cool, I thought). Anyway, what if some unsuspecting person got an iPhone knockoff with thousands of apps and stumbled across one marked "Super Hero"? And, with the press of a button, the damned phone sprouts arms, legs, a cape and flies off to fight evil?

    

C'mon. Give it a try. Anyone who dreams up some particularly awesome "What If" concepts are free to post with their comments (just no full stories, please).

 

Good luck.

YOUR OWN DAMNED VOICE

Supposedly, if you can understand a writer’s voice you can understand the writer. Most of the time, I’d buy that argument: especially when someone spends a lot of time, devotion, and money on a piece of literature. If writing from the heart, then your real voice should come through.

What’s my voice? I, for one, love writing about twisted things. For example, I once wrote a short story called “Life Tax”.

The premise was that, in a dark future, the U.S. took over the world (without a nuke fired). Why bother taking over the world? Because the Earth’s resources were running on “E” and there were just too many humans running around consuming them. Ergo, such a conquest was vital to mankind’s survival. Upon taking over the world, the U.S. instituted the Life Tax. Every living person had to pay ten grand to the IRS – every year – regardless of income level. If you could afford it, you lived. If you couldn’t afford to pay your taxes or make it up in labor/contraband/body parts, then the efficient, brutal, trigger-happy operatives of the IRS would happily kill you. It’s the ultimate tale of economic Darwinism: if you can’t cough up ten grand a year, you don’t deserve to live.

Guess what, folks? I probably shouldn’t write children’s books.

It’s my voice. And I love it. Sometimes, if my mood’s brighter, I can write lighter stuff with happier endings and zero body count.

And if someone you like/trust/respect urges you to write against your voice, don’t give in. Some folks just don’t understand that a person’s writing voice is something sacred and God-given (if you’re spiritual of mind) or just a product of your sheer brilliance (if you’re an atheist). 

A voice might change over time. It might be as sweet as honey or as vile as vomit. But it’s your writing voice. And it should never, ever, be betrayed.

To do so would be to deny who you are.

And hey, for a huge wad of money, I could see someone abandoning their real voice for something fake. I couldn’t do it though (not even for Oprah’s book club). And if you’re true to your voice and passionate about your work, the money/fame will come.

Every writer’s voice is probably as unique as a snowflake or a strand of DNA. Funkier still is the fact that your voice’ll change with time and mood, based on whatever life throws at you. Figure yours out. Then figure out who you’re going to try to market your stuff to when you’re done. Readers have voices too, even if they don’t put them down on paper.

Find your kind of readers and you’ll find potential lifetime fans. I won’t try to sell “Life Tax” to Amish farmers. But I might have better luck with the local IRS branch office [insert evil laugh]. And frankly, if you write well enough, folks off types might read your stuff anyway . . . just because it’s that good.

HER MAJESTY’S POLTERGEISTS

You’re probably asking yourself “what the f*ck” is this post about? I use the above post title to make a point. As you begin your chaotic path toward short story greatness, keep in mind that there’s more than one way to write a story. Sometimes, the best way is to simply come up with a messed-up title.

“Her Majesty’s Poltergeists” was a screenplay that a buddy of mine and I worked on about . . . five or six years back. He thought up this beautiful title and then gave me a plot that was so weird, so borderline Monty Python, that common courtesy prevents me from mentioning it on this blog.

But the title was so good that I wrote a screenplay around it. It’s violent, funny, British, and has ghosts in it. The difference between writing a short story and a 120-plus-page screenplay is that the short story’s a lot easier.

So, whenever you’re stuck for a short story idea, don’t always try to construct a plot in your head. Think of a messed-up title instead. In fact, think of a few and scribble them down somewhere. Hell, make a list of them and pick one. Then write a story around it.

IT CAN BE DONE.  Think of “Machete”, wherein (movie god) Robert Rodriguez wrote a full-length movie around a fake trailer.

Now, I double-dog-dare someone (anyone) to write a short story around any 10 of the titles below. I just went to my day job and kept a piece of scrap paper nearby. By the end of the day, I had a healthy list of titles in my head (try it, this might work for you).

10 Titles

1. Party Cam
2. Love’s For Other People
3. A Soul For A Soul
4. Ghost Pimp
5. Beauford The Ninja
6. Santa, version 12.0
7. My Kid The Rap Star
8. The Zombie Games
9. Samurai Nun
10. Why I Married A Dragon

You can write any genre you want – from a love story to horror to sci-fi. Don’t worry about length either. Just wrap your mind around the title and see what shakes loose. I don’t wanna see it. But if you want to post a comment on what the story was about, I’d appreciate it.

MY INNER JUNKIE

I've been accused of having too much free time. And, in the late 1990's, that was so true. After grad school, I ended up in a tiny Akron apartment with a string of temp jobs and bills galore to pay off. After I picked up my undergrad degree, I didn't know what I wanted to do with the rest of my existence. In grad school, I still didn't know what I wanted (except maybe to vaporize my grad school with a satellite weapon).

 

As a wee kid, I was a writing junkie. I loved it so much that I taught myself how to type, so that I could spit out my ideas faster. Clanging an old Underwood typewriter drove my mom crazy at nights. But I misplaced my writing addiction in grad school. It wasn't until those rock-bottom years (say, '96 to '98) that I even considered getting back into writing.

 

And when I started up again, in my late twenties, my (silly) motive was money. Maybe, I figured, writing could be a full-time gig or a way to make some side cash. But frankly, it's a stupid reason to get into writing fiction of any genre. Selling buggy whips is probably easier than selling fiction. There must be dozens of ways to make a faster buck (like writing nonfiction books about a useful topic).

 

And you know what? It wouldn't have mattered. I could've been a successful executive with a loving family. I could've been in prison, doing 25-to-life. I could've been a thong salesman with a harpy for a wife, four awful kids, and a pet elk. Whatever I ended up doing after grad school, I'd have ended up writing. To me, saying otherwise is like claiming to be immune to gravity or time.

 

These days, I've got a pretty good job. The money's nice – more than I need. My colleagues are cool to work with. Seeing as I'm no longer broke, I could settle in and walk away from this silly art . . . [insert laughter].

 

I've had low points, where I gave it up and tried something else. The problem (no, blessing) is that I always come back to the art. I can't stop. If anything, I've become so focused on writing that I've shut off other avenues in my life . . . which is probably not a good thing. And thus, I work my day job and write during my free time.

 

'Cause I'm a writing junkie again, as I was supposed to be. As I was born to be.

 

It's a long, lonely, thrilling ride. But it can be done. Just be patient, mind your health, keep honing your writing chops, and get your stuff published before you die. One of my deepest fears is to die before I publish, with all of my written works ending up in a landfill.

 

Wanna know what that fear feels like? Pull up any unpublished lit you've ever written and read it over. Marvel at how good it is and the potential you've shown in writing it. Please, I'm begging you: don't let it end up lost and unknown. Polish it up and get it out there. That's what writers do.

 

So let me end by saying that need/greed might be a decent catalyst to enter the writing game: but it won't sustain you. If you can walk away from this and make a faster (probably larger) buck doing something else, then do it. If you want – no, need – to get your work out there, you're probably a junkie too.