by C. Hope Clark
Read the one about the amateur sleuth dating a police detective in order to solve the crime? Or the one about the girl losing her career in a very public way and having to move home to the town she couldn’t wait to get away from when she was younger and start over?
How do you take a tired idea and pump life into it so it’s fresh?
Face it, there are several basic plots available for fiction. It’s up to the author to spin one of them into his or her own. Now’s the time you study your competition, what’s been done before, and decide how to make theirs look plain, and yours appear unique. Heck, start with their story and screw it into something unrecognizable as theirs, but totally original as your own.
Take the opposite stance of the clichéd, same old story.
For instance, what if the police detective dates an amateur sleuth, and the amateur sleuth gets killed by the villain? Or the girl who loses her career goes home, finds that it still stinks, and she returns to her original job and convinces them, when she’s about destitute, that she’s still needed? She might even become the boss! Or she goes home, finds the old boyfriend has left instead of hanging around, and she takes a chance and follows him with all the ups and downs that come with taking chances, because, face it, the old hometown sucked. Maybe all the old horrible traits of the town start dragging them down, and they have to shed the old place forever through bold new moves with their lives.
Start with a cliché then remove the expectation. Twist the twist. Then twist the twisted twist.
Write your story and give it a twist. Then twist the twist. Then maybe twist the twist again. Not that this is simple, but readers love it!
The millionaire falls in love with the waitress. He courts her. She is flattered and accepts his offers, but eventually falls in love with the chauffeur who picks her up for each date. After a lot of cat-and-mouse, heartbroken, the millionaire cuts the waitress loose. But a plan is already in place by the chauffeur to kill the millionaire. Joining forces with the millionaire, the waitress attempts to stop the chauffeur before he does the deed. She doesn’t. The kind millionaire is murdered. Crushed, deciding she might have loved the millionaire after all, she kills the chauffeur.
What if the unemployed girl goes back to her hometown and opens a business that puts another shop out of business? The owners of that other business are the parents of her old boyfriend. One of them has a heart attack from the stress. Dig that hole so deep that it’s nearly impossible to escape.
In other words, about the time you think you have the story figured out, take it to another level. Then another.
Turn a classic on its ear.
What if you took To Kill a Mockingbird, changed the players, made it contemporary, and turned it into a comedy? What if you took 50 Shades of Grey and had Christian go broke, or had him go too far with the girl and kill her?
Look at the movie Enchanted. Taking a fairy-tale story of castles, princes, and princesses, the makers catapulted the story and players into a modern, urban setting, crossing the two worlds in a humorous romantic comedy.
Or Isabella and the Slipper, a sweet teen romance by bestselling clean romance novelist Victorine Lieske, where she takes Cinderella’s tale and turns it into a modern teenage drama where phones are switched, a plain girl gets to pretend she’s something she’s not, and an evil stepmother attempts to foil things with two evil stepsisters.
Throw in super powers.
Not that your character can suddenly fly or stop trains, though you can do that, but your character can develop talents or powers that get in the way. What if your amateur sleuth has a photographic memory? What if the sleuth’s IQ is 150? What is she used to be a keen lock picker and even served time in jail?
Sudden wealth can be considered a super power, because with money comes power. Have someone win the lottery or inherit big in the middle of your plot. How does it affect the protagonist, the romantic interest, the sidekick, the villain?
Or go with the super powers. Jessica Jones is a PI and ex-superbeing because she failed at fitting into the superhero role.
Not only do you develop a more creative character with the addition of powers, but you deepen the plot with more twists as these powers get in the way of solving the dilemma.
These are simply called what-ifs, and there are a zillion of them. Take two completely different books, movies, or television shows and combine them. Heck, you might even get ideas combining commercials.
Suzanne Collins said she developed Hunger Games after channel surfing, seeing teens compete in a contest before turning to a story about war. Voila!
Don’t think your story has enough oomph to be appealing?
Try this. Start with chapter one and take a sharp detour with some decision, action, or outcome. Then chapter two, until you find one reality shift that snaps you to attention. Then spin it out. One strong shift will upend the rest of the story as you initiate the butterfly or ripple effect for the rest of the tale. Just remember to go bold with it.
It’s not that you cannot be original, it’s that you might be your own worst enemy. Back off and go crazy with twists, shifts, and what-ifs. You’ll be amazed at your genius.
C. Hope Clark’s newest release is Newberry Sin, set in an idyllic small Southern town where blackmail and sex are hush-hush until they become murder. It was released April 20 and is the fourth in the Carolina Slade Mysteries. Hope speaks to conferences, libraries, and book clubs across the country, is a regular podcaster for Writer’s Digest, and adores connecting with others. She is also founder of FundsforWriters.com, an award-winning site and newsletter service for writers. She lives on the banks of Lake Murray in central South Carolina with her federal-agent husband, where they spin mysteries just for fun.