Write Great Fiction--Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell Page B

factual accuracy.
    Here’s a quick way to get ideas from research:
Choose a nonfiction book on some subject you always wanted to know about.
Skim the book for an overview.
Jot down plot ideas that come to you.
Read the book in greater detail.
Spot more ideas, and flesh out those you already have.
    Do this, and soon your heart will connect with some bit of data that fires you up.
13. “What I Really Want to Write About Is …”
    Try this exercise first thing in the morning. Your subconscious has been dreamily percolating through the night. It has things to tell you. So grab your cup of Joe and get to a paper or computer screen. Start with, “What I really want to write about is …”
    Then write for ten minutes without stopping. Follow the thoughts that come to you, expanding them, going on to others, floating on the streams of your consciousness.
    This is not only good for ideas, but also to loosen up your writing muscles. You can use this as a warm-up to your writing day.
14. Obsession
    By its nature, an obsession controls the deepest emotions of a character. It pushes the character and prompts her to action. As such, it is a great springboard for ideas.
    What sorts of things obsess people? Ego? Looks? Lust? Careers? Enemies? Success?
    What is Javert’s obsession in
Les Miserables
? Duty. It drives him to fanaticism and finally death.
    What is Ahab’s obsession? A big, white whale. Without that obsession, we’d have no
Moby Dick
.
    Dorian Gray is obsessed with youth.
    All of the characters in
The Maltese Falcon
are obsessed with the black bird.
    In
Gone With the Wind
, Rhett is obsessed with Scarlett. Scarlett is obsessed with Ashley. Therein lies the tale.
    Create a character. Give her an obsession. Watch where she runs.
15. Opening Lines
    Dean Koontz wrote
The Voice of the Night
based on an opening line he wrote while just “playing around”: “You ever killed anything?” Roy asked.
    Only after the line was written did Koontz decide Roy would be a boy of fourteen. He then went on to write two pages of dialogue that opened the book. But it all started with one line that reached out and grabbed him by the throat.
    Joseph Heller was famous for using first lines to suggest novels. In desperation one day, needing to start a novel but having no ideas, these opening lines came to Heller: “In the office in which I work, there are four people of whom I am afraid. Each of these four people is afraid of five people.”
    These two lines immediately suggested what Heller calls “a whole explosion of possibilities and choices.” The result was his novel
Something Happened
.
    Likewise, Heller’s classic
Catch-22
got started when he wrote these lines:“It was love at first sight. The first time he saw the chaplain,
Someone
fell madly in love with him.” Only later did Heller replace
Someone
with the character’s name, Yossarian, and decide that the chaplain was an army chaplain, as opposed to a prison chaplain. The lines conceived the story.
    Writing opening lines is fun. Try it. Your imagination will thank you.
16. Write a Prologue
    Page-turning fiction today often begins with an action prologue. It doesn’t have to involve the main character either. But something exciting, mysterious, suspenseful, or shocking happens that makes the reader say,“Hey, I better read the rest of the book to find out why this happened.”
    Gripping openings are fairly easy to write. The trick is putting a book after it. But the ideas you generate with a good prologue may lead to a full story. And writing a prologue of 1,000 to 2,000 words every now and then is great practice for writing page-turning fiction.
17. The Mind Map
    The venerable practice of mind mapping is always a promising method of creation. A mind map is simply a web of quick associations, rendered in visual form. The process can be broken down into three phases:
    [1] Ready. Choose a word or concept