Using Ideas to Start A Story by Alicia Rasley

I know, I know. Stories should feature strong characters with a vivid plot. That’s what I heard in every fiction workshop. But stories were originally told to convey ideas, and every novel I wrote (except Cigerets) developed from an idea. The characters and plot came later.

Raising Hell was inspired by the realization that hell would really be just like working your day job. Forever. The Worst Noel from the idea that every plan creates unintended consequences (especially if you ask the wrong person to do the job).

Seeing Jesus was meant to be a non-fiction book discussing how narrative and metaphoric thinking shapes our beliefs. An agent suggested the novel (then passed on it).

Alicia Rasley explains why you don’t have to be a deep thinker to write about ideas.

And I found another excuse to plug my books.

No Wasted Ink

Thanks, Wendy, for inviting me to talk today about “idea” as a way to start a story. Some stories, especially those classified as “speculative fiction,” start not with anything concrete like character or setting, but with an idea to be explored.

As science fiction writer Orson Scott Card explains, “Idea stories are about the process of seeking and discovering new information through the eyes of characters who are driven to make the discoveries.”

That’s really the appeal of an idea story. No matter what it turns out to be, it starts as an intellectual puzzle. In the spirit of that sort of intellectual mission, let’s consider some ways an idea can start a story.

Questions. For example, many mysteries start with a scene that presents a question, one of the oldest questions of all, “Whodunnit?” But most authors add some additional complication, like, what could kill a man alone in…

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