Little Cottage in the Northwoods

This is a popular game among writers. Here are some ways it can help you in your writing.

In my previous article, Waiting on the Muse, I talked about using memories to inspire story ideas, but sometimes your memories won’t appeal to the reader. When I was eight years old, I went to camp for a couple weeks one summer. Nothing exciting happened, nothing was stolen, nobody got lost, nobody got in trouble for breaking the rules, nobody found buried treasure, and nobody got hurt. This made the camp directors happy, but it won’t make the reader happy. There was no excitement, no action, and no obstacles which is what a good story needs.

At camp, we ate, played games, went swimming, and were able to buy snacks at the snack bar all day long. That was a lot of fun, but that doesn’t make a good story, even if I described all the food in glorious detail.
Imagine the blurb on the back of the book reading “eight year old girl has a fun time eating at summer camp.” I’ll tell you, even if I wrote it, I wouldn’t pick up the book, and I wouldn’t promote it for anyone else to buy. So why would I even bother writing about a girl going to summer camp? Because it’s a basic idea, and that is where What if comes into play and turns the basic concept into an exciting story.
What if I wrote about a girl who found buried treasure at camp? At camp we played baseball.
What if the girl in story couldn’t play baseball? She decides to spend all day in her cabin and not come out until they changed to an activity she could do. While she’s in her cabin, she discovers a note from a previous camper. The camper mentions where she hid some buried treasure. Now…the story is getting good. There is a crisis and a mystery. Buried treasure is much more exciting than eating… How much better could summer camp be?

Remember the story in “Waiting on the Muse” about a girl who goes to Nashville to find fame and fortune?
What if this girl drops out of school, goes to Nashville without her parent’s consent. What if she’s only 16. She can’t get a recording contract without her parents. She lies and says she’s 18. Maybe she runs into legal problems. This slows down her chance at fame and stardom. Finally, she has to go back home and face her parents. What? That doesn’t sound good. Well how about this:
What If the girl isn’t 16, she’s 26. She just finished getting her MBA and her father is ready for her to take over the family business, but she drops a bombshell. She’s going to Nashville to become a singer. Obviously, she’s over 18 so her father can’t make her stay home, but he’s hurt that she’s leaving. What if she only ends up singing on street corners and in sleazy bars? She’s taking a chance on her dreams but fame and fortune seem further away in Nashville than they did back in her small town. Does she go back and beg her father’s forgiveness, or does she keep going whether she makes it or not?

What if also comes in handy when you’re stuck with a story. Let’s take the example from, “Waiting on the Muse”, the orphan story:

A girl is adopted by a couple living on a farm who can’t have kids. When the girl finds out they don’t love her she runs away and stows away on a pirate ship.

Now, I’m not thrilled with the scene of the girl stowing away on a pirate ship. For one thing I don’t know anything about pirates so I can’t even describe what a pirate ship looks like; however, if the pirate ship was important to the story, I could research information about it, but instead, I’d like to come up with a better scene. What if she gets lost, doesn’t know where she is, and befriends a lonely farmer and his wife. They had a daughter who died. They miss the sound of laughter in the house. She is afraid to be rejected so she hesitates, but there’s something about the sad couple and she can see in their eyes that they really like her. They don’t just want “anybody” to fill the empty space in the house and their hearts. They want her.

Okay, you had the basic idea, played What if, expanded your story, and you’re ready to send it off to a publisher. But the editor wants 70,000 words and you only have 60,000. What if comes in handy at this point of writing. Your story is finished, if the editor wanted 60,000 words you would be done. You have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. The end.

Let’s say boy loses girl because he’s on a date with another girl. This is good, a love triangle. Now, girl gets jealous and they have a big fight. How is he going to get her back?
Let’s say, right now, in the story, the new girl is actually the boy’s sister? Okay that’s a cute twist, but it doesn’t add another 10,000 words, so let’s add another crisis into the story.
What if the new girl is the boy’s old girlfriend. He still has feelings for her only dealing with these new feelings internally, but he has to talk to both girls, as well as feelings for the girl he’s dating now?

There you go, you’ve added another dimension to the story. Boy is not only dealing with these new feelings internally, but he has to talk to both girls and tell them how he really feels about each of them creating another crisis, more obstacles, more excitement, and, hopefully, 10,000 more words.