How can I develop my ideas?
A problem I run into frequently is that I am struck by an idea, more accurately termed "a premise," for a story, but then I can't decide what to do with it.
I think of a million ways to present the idea and I can't really decide on how to proceed.
Example:
Say I have an idea for a sci-fi short story about a society that replaces the dead with artificially intelligent holograms, imprinted with the mind of the deceased, so as to create the feeling that nobody has truly departed. This is a society that cannot let go, that does everything possible to avoid accepting death.
But now I think: this could be seen through the eyes of a child. Or an adult. Or of several people. Or by the crew of a ship visiting this society from somewhere else. This could be a personal, touching story, or a sterilized and distant story (sort of the way Asimov writes). This could be told in a thousand different ways, with a thousand different scenes and endings and voices.
Let me condense this into a not-so-simple question: once I have my premise, how do I decide on how to tell my story? On what the best way to tell it is? What characters would best fit this tale? Etc.
How do I narrow down my story's content?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/6020. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
I have sort of a different take: don't narrow it down. Write them all, as short stories.
Your premise is the premise of an entire society. All those potential stories are valid. So create them all. Use each little vignette as a different window into how this society functions, how the people relate to one another, how the technology developed, how some people embrace it and some reject it, how it's seen from the outside.
Edgar Lee Masters wrote a book of poems called the Spoon River Anthology. The 200-plus poems are each from the POV of a different character, and all together they create a portrait of the town of Spoon River. I suppose yours might be the There Is No Spoon Anthology, but you get my point. If your goal is to explore all the different facets of this society, then show all the facets.
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