Go from initial idea to overall story for your screenplay or novel in one brainstorming session

Step 1 of my process for creating a meaningful, entertaining work of fiction

While there is no one right way to go from your initial idea to a finished first draft of your novel or screenplay, the process I’ll present in this series of posts presents what I think is a very effective and efficient way of creating the first draft of a novel or feature screenplay.

In this process, you’ll first decide on certain elements of your story, characters, and plot, but not all of them. And then you’ll take what you’ve decided and begin writing, figuring out the details of your work in progress as you go.

In this way, my process avoids the drawbacks of two popular, polar-opposite approaches: outlining and pantsing. My approach is neither as rigid as fully outlining a story nor as directionless and risky as the anything-goes approach of pantsing.

In this series of posts, I’ll present my process, and you’ll watch me as I apply my process to an actual idea I have, which I may write as a novel or feature screenplay (or both).

Overview of my process

To preview my process a bit, here are some of the things you’ll decide before writing:

• The broad strokes of the main characters (and maybe a few telling, specific details)

• Character introductions (how you introduce your characters)

• What the overall story is about

• The central dramatic argument

• How the main character transforms

• The main plot engine

• How the plot serves the story

• The stakes

• What the climax involves broadly

• The genre and tone

• A hazy plan for the sequences in the story

• The broad strokes of the ending

Even though you’ll decide on the above elements during the pre-writing stage, you’re not locked into those decisions and can make changes during the writing if you find that any of your initial decisions aren’t working or if you come up with stronger ideas.

Here are some of the things you won’t decide beforehand but instead will discover in a state of flow as you write:

• The details of each scene and sequence

• Very specific biographical details about each character

• The exact order of all scenes

• The connections and transitions between scenes and sequences

• Minor characters

In this post, I’ll show you how to go from an initial idea (whether a premise, character, plot, or world) and develop the overall story, the central dramatic argument, the main plot engine, and the stakes.

To do so, I’ll first need to define what I mean by these terms because different people define them differently.

Story vs. plot

Plot refers to the events that happen, while story is what all of it means. To be more precise, the story is the overarching transformation that the protagonist undergoes.

For example, in Finding Nemo, the plot is about Marlin trying to find his son. But the story is about Marlin learning to let Nemo experience life, even if that involves danger.

Plot serves story

A plot should be entertaining and keep the audience engaged, but in doing so, it must also serve the story. That is, the plot events should be the things that change the protagonist. Nearly every experience Marlin has on his way to finding Nemo involves him learning a different approach to parenting.

For example, Dory is a clone of Nemo: that is, she is fish with a disability (while Nemo has a small fin, Dory has no short-term memory). In this way, she is a surrogate child for Marlin, and he learns to let her take risks during their journey to finding Nemo.

Likewise, Crush is a clone of Marlin, representing a positive possibility of what Marlin could be as a father. When Crush’s son falls out of the current, Marlin observes how Crush lets his son figure out how to right the situation.

All of these sequences act upon Marlin to change him by the story’s climax.

Central dramatic argument (aka theme)

Closely related to the story is the central dramatic argument. In Finding Nemo, that argument, as screenwriter Craig Mazin pointed out, is that loving parents must let their children go. In other words, the central dramatic argument is the belief that the protagonist comes to hold (and to show through action).

In Finding Nemo, Marlin demonstrates his new belief by allowing Nemo to rescue Dory from the fishing net.

This is what you would call the climactic choice of the movie — that is, a choice, under the stress of a high-stakes situation, that shows the protagonist has changed.

Main plot engine

Some stories will have multiple plot engines, but most have one main one. The main plot engine is usually organized around an overarching goal or an overarching question. In Finding Nemo, the goal is to find Nemo and bring him home.

You can see examples of plots built on an overarching question in this post.

Stakes

My screenwriting teachers defined stakes as either the negative thing a character is trying to avoid and/or the positive thing the character is trying to gain. Sometimes, the negative and positive are just two sides of the same coin.

For example, in Finding Nemo, the negative thing Marlin is trying to avoid is his son being lost forever, and if he can find Nemo, he’ll gain the positive of being reunited with his only remaining child.

The purpose of stakes is to make the reader/audience care. If nothing is at stake, you’re not going to want to read or watch the story.

For example, imagine I was going to tell you a story about a man who wants to get fries from Wendy’s on a Monday night, and he only has five minutes to get there before they close.

Chances are your reaction would be, “So what? He can get them tomorrow.” Or: “Why does he need them tonight?”

In other words, there’s nothing really at stake in whether the man gets his fries on the night he wants them.

But imagine if I told you about a man in 1855 who has to get medicine for his sick child, and if he doesn’t get it tonight, his child will die. Moreover, there’s only one place in the county where he can get this medicine, and it will be hard to reach it in time.

That would be a story with stakes.

From initial idea to story

Now that you understand these terms, you probably already see that in going from your initial idea to your overarching story, you’re going to have to answer the following questions:

• Who is the protagonist?

• How do they transform by the end?

• And how does the plot enable that transformation?

From there, we’ll then turn to answering these questions:

• What is the central dramatic argument?

• What’s at stake?

• What’s the main plot engine?

But, wait, you might be thinking. My initial idea doesn’t involve a character. Maybe you instead have a world only. Or maybe you have just a plot idea involving an archetype but not a fully formed character.

That’s all right. Whether you start with a character, plot, world, or some combination of them, you can then fill in what’s missing and decide on the story.

Applying this process to one of my current ideas

To make all of this less abstract, I’m going to go through this process with you. I’m going to share an idea I have that I haven’t written yet. And then I’m going to fill in the details of it to create a story.

I’m going to paste below the idea I have, taken directly from my ideas file, and then explain it a bit:

Prison story idea. Working title: Life sentence. Premise: An appellate criminal defense attorney tries to free an innocent man from a life sentence at the same time as he tries to escape the prison of his own life.

Before I think out loud on the page about what story could come from this idea, let me explain a bit about why I like this idea.

First, I like the idea of these two clone characters. One character is literally serving a life sentence in prison. The other is a free, successful person, but, from his perspective, his life feels like a prison sentence, specifically a life sentence from which he cannot escape.

What do I mean by that? I’m referring to an experience that I think is fairly universal. Who among us hasn’t felt that going to work every week day and having to earn a living doesn’t feel a bit like being a prisoner?

You have a fixed work schedule, often with defined hours. You have to ask for approval to go on vacation. You have people you answer to, both at work and at home.

Yes, you can walk away from all of it at any time, but where does that leave you? Potentially homeless? A pariah? You’re stuck. There’s no way out. We’re all serving a life sentence.

Second, what I like about this idea is how I see these two characters in broad strokes:

The successful lawyer, who is free, is unhappy, while the convicted person serving a life sentence, even though wrongfully convicted, is actually a happy and wise person.

I like that irony. I also like the idea of the prisoner being the mentor character, even as his lawyer tries to free him.

So, those are the two reasons I like this idea:

1. It deals with a very universal experience and therefore is easy to build meaning around

2. It has an interesting, unexpected pairing at its core; the free person is miserable; the convict is content.

Brainstorming the transformation

This idea already has a protagonist — a criminal defense appellate attorney — and the broad strokes of a plot: the plot will focus on trying to free the convict.

What kind of transformation might this plot create? Here’s what I’m thinking. This is a character who has to learn to be brave. Whatever he truly wants to be free is possible for him, but he’s too scared to make the sacrifices to go after it. In other words, the door to his jail cell is open, but he must learn to be brave enough to walk through.

All of the above is very vague and hazy. It lacks specific details at this stage, and while I have some ideas about what that will look like, let’s first turn to the next step.

Determining whether the plot can enable this transformation

You may be wondering how this transformation could come about from the attorney pursuing an appeal. You might also be wondering about the details of that plot and what obstacles and setbacks the protagonist will encounter. I do have some initial thoughts on how the plot will play out, but first I must answer whether this plot could support the transformation.

In short, yes, it can. How will it do so? While I don’t know the details yet, I am planning for the convict to have a significant influence on the thinking of the protagonist. I’m also thinking there will be a romantic subplot with a female character that helps change the protagonist.

When considering how the plot can transform the character, focus less on particular plot events and more on the character relationships that the plot involves. Yes, you’ll need to figure out specific plot events later in this process. But for now, the relationships are enough.

Remember again that in Finding Nemo, it is Marlin’s relationships with Dory and Crush that enable him to change. Yes, those relationships involve specific plot events that change Marlin, but for our ideas and our process, we’ll figure out the plot events later.

Determining the central dramatic argument

Now that I have a story (and not just an idea), it’s very straightforward to decide what the central dramatic argument is. The central dramatic argument (CDA), or theme, is simply the transformation stated in a way that applies to everyone. Here’s what the CDA is for this story:

To fully embrace our freedom, we must be brave enough to escape the prisons we create for ourselves.

That, in a nutshell, is the wisdom this story will be offering to readers/viewers in dealing with the universal issue of feeling trapped by our lives or society.

As I further develop this story and reach the stage of writing individual scenes, I imagine this CDA may become more specific and refined, but for now, what I have is enough to keep going.

Reviewing what’s at stake

Does this story have strong enough stakes? In my opinion, not yet.

This story currently has two main sets of stakes:

• The stakes of the attorney’s legal case are that his defendant, a man serving a life sentence, will spend the rest of his life in jail if the lawyer doesn’t win the case.

• The attorney himself will also never be free (and happier) if he can’t become more brave.

There’s a slight problem with the first set of stakes. One, the prisoner is not very motivated to leave prison. As I said earlier, he’s content. Two, he’s already in prison at the start of the story; so, the bad thing has already happened, and there’s no chance of him avoiding it.

For that reason and others, I anticipate that these stakes will have to escalate during the story. My initial thought is that the prisoner has something he’s always wanted to do in the outside world but hasn’t yet done. And, at some point in the story, perhaps he will get a terminal illness. And, so if he doesn’t get freed by our attorney, he’s going to die in prison and never get to do this thing on the outside that has eluded him.

Of course, to make these stakes powerful, I need to work out the specifics of what he wants to do on the outside and make it specific and memorable, but I’ll save that task for another day.

For now, my new plan for the prisoner’s stakes feels stronger to me. I feel like the audience will care more. There is something negative that will happen for sure unless our hero prevails.

The second set of stakes also has a weakness. If the lawyer fails to recognize the error of his ways, he too will simply continue in his current life, none the worse for things.

To make the reader care more, I’ll have to make sure that the lawyer’s personal stakes escalate in some way, so that if he doesn’t change, he will be missing out on what feels like the best chance he’ll ever get at a better life.

I have some ideas for the specifics of how to do that — it will most likely involve a key relationship with a love interest — but for now I’ll save this task for another day. I’ll talk about my ideas in a future post in this series.

Reviewing the main plot engine

Okay, last task for this brainstorming session: what’s the main plot engine here? The main plot engine for this story will be a conflict, with the lawyer trying to free the defendant from his life sentence and experiencing various obstacles and setbacks in doing so.

But I also anticipate using other plot engines to power related subplots. For example, I’m going to have a subplot powered by the question technique, with the overarching question being why is this prisoner so happy in jail? We’ll learn that other inmates and even guards call him the Mayor and that the Mayor has created a kind of utopia in the prison, where there is little to no violence. This will raise another question: How did he achieve such a state?

The romance subplot will also be powered by a plot engine, most likely involving questions about the love interest.

A special offer for you

One more thing for this week: I have an offer for you. If you’re brave enough to comment on this post and share one of these two things —

• Your initial idea along with the story it could support or

• What you struggle with the most when it comes to writing fiction

— I will read the first five pages of your current work in progress and offer my take.

My feedback won’t focus on my subjective interest in whatever genre you’re writing in. Instead, I’ll have you tell me about your intentions for the beginning of the story, particularly what you want the reader to think and feel. And I’ll tell you what I think and feel while reading your pages.

Does that sound like a good deal? Make sure to comment below with one of the two things I request above, and do so sooner rather than later because I may edit this post to end this offer.

Comment below, and then we’ll DM to set up my review and feedback.

If you found this post helpful, please also consider re-stacking this post, so that others can see it.

For post 2 in this series, I’ll begin working on details of the plot for Life Sentence as well as the main characters and supporting characters.

Until then, happy writing.