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How to Find Story Ideas --- in the Refrigerator |
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Written by Glenda K. Fralin
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Monday, 17 September 2007 |
This is a short article detailing some 'off the wall' items that can become a part of a fiction story idea.
Ok, that title may sound far fetched, but is it? Nope, not in my house or writing machine (speaking of my brain not this computer).
Imagine going to one’s refrigerator and finding a bottle of ketchup. That sounds boring, but it’s not if it’s really a bottle of blood that Doris’ husband has put there after killing the neighbor's dog. Now the ketchup bottle is part of a sinister plot, or a deranged mind.
Now, let’s dig deeper into that refrigerator. Find a moldy old sandwich forgotten in the back. That moldy old sandwich is a community’s only hope to start a penicillin culture in the local school science lab to destroy an infection that is plaguing the city after an earthquake shuts it off from the rest of the world. The city is now an island in the Pacific.
Get those juices flowing? Having a little fun? Let’s do more.
Go out to the garage. There in the corner is a weed whacker, the kind that has a serrated edge on each side. All the main character is going to do with it is clear weeds along the hedge. But while doing so, he looks over at a neighbor’s yard and….
Nothing around us has to be just an object; no person is just there. Everything and everyone is a plot in the making. Sometimes one has to be able to think a little crazy, sinister, paranoid, or find something humorous about a bar of soap.
Is a blade of grass a blade of grass, or is it a metaphor for love that needs trimming occasionally and has times when it seems dormant only to grow again in the spring?
Abracadabra! Magic is everywhere, even in the refrigerator.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 October 2007 )
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