#08 What Happens Next (Part 2) - The Midnight Ship: Developing New Story Ideas After the Initial Brainstorm

Following episode no. 7 where Anna Tizard read out the first part of The Midnight Ship, today she explores the wonderful ideas for "what happens next" in this new story, with contributions from indie authors Tammy Nieuwoudt, Alessandro Bozzo and Mariah Bell (M. L. White). 
 
Discussion includes: how beginnings and endings are intertwined; why character is so important even in a short story; and why it's worth pausing after your first venture into a new draft story to consider ALL your story development options.
 
Plus: 3 rounds of the zany surrealist word game Exquisite Corpse, for brand new, unique, and imagination-bending story ideas that will get you writing!

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SHOW TRANSCRIPTION (does not include Exquisite Corpse game play at the end):

It’s been a while. Several weeks in fact since the last show. I have been off work, off everything, with long COVID and it’s been a long, slow haul, and it’s not over yet – but I am definitely getting there. I am crawling back to reality – whatever that may be – well, let’s just say, I’m feeling ready to create new realities, which is of course what we authors and imaginists do.

OK! So, in today’s show, the 8th episode, I am very excited to share with you – at long last – the feedback some of you sent me about the beginning part of my new short story, The Midnight Ship, and what you thought should happen next. In the last episode, no 7, I read out a draft part 1 of this new short story which had been inspired by one of the Exquisite Corpse results we had in the show before that, the 6 story brainstorm - episode 6, funnily enough. In a moment, I will give you a very quick recap on the story so far, partly because it’s been a while, and partly because I got a bit carried away with the maritime theme and so I recorded part 1 on the sea front near where I live in Brighton. My voice also got a little bit carried away – by the wind, and the crashing of the waves, and a ship went past – weirdly appropriate, but again quite noisy. It was difficult to find a quiet moment before half of Brighton pitched up with their dogs and children. But never fear, when the story is completed, I will read out the whole thing….clearly, and indoors.

At this point in time, the whole story is drafted and is in the “resting” phase – I’ll probably give it about two weeks – so I can come back to it fresh and edit it, to make it the very best it can be.

But since I got all this wonderful feedback, much of which has influenced and may yet still influence how the story finally comes together, I really want to talk about this mid-way phase of development, because after that initial ‘splurge’ of writing part 1, where I was just writing whatever came into my head and ‘discovering’ it as I did so – possibly my favourite part of writing, as a discovery writer (I’m not a pre-planner) – the next stage after that, when you have to decide where this story is definitely going – this is where I can easily get stuck. It’s my weakness. I get excited by ideas, in case you hadn’t noticed; the sheer range of possible directions the story could take can actually block me from being able to take the next step. I can get overwhelmed by the choices. So how do I cope with this difficulty? I ask my readers and listeners to send me even more ideas! Am I bonkers?

​Well, I think it’s really worth stopping after the first escapade into a new idea, once you’ve written all you can at that point – to consider a substantial range of possible directions before you go any further. I believe almost anyone can write a pretty good opening to a story; but developing that story to its full potential, and bringing it all to a satisfying conclusion – maybe throwing in a surprise or two – that takes work, play, and practice. It also takes a lot of ideas. The more ideas you have, the more of a selection you’ve given yourself to choose from, and then you know you’re going for something that might seem a little obvious. If you have a lot of ideas, you get pick the very best ones.

Now, back to The Midnight Ship:

Just to remind you, the full Exquisite Corpse result that inspired this was, “The perfumed elf swapped boots with the midnight ship.” So we’re working with some kind of bargain which might well be unfair. Elgart, that’s the captain, owns a secret ship called the Midnight that is only visible in moonlight. He’s a trader in illegal magical goods, as well as having a legitimate business transporting ordinary goods in the daytime. At the beginning, we see him waiting for a trader to turn and a mysterious perfume wafts past him. Then we see him having an illicit meeting with someone who turns out to be an elf. From the start, I was quite drawn to the idea of perfume being some subtle magic the elf uses to mess with the Elgart’s judgement, and so I mention the perfume in the very first line, but this is something I could still change.

Now, so that I don’t spend all day talking about this, I’m going to pick out the ideas from three people who made suggestions. Now the first was Tammy Nieuwoudt, who said:
 
"The elf wants the ship, but the captain won’t give it to him, so the elf plays a tricksy bargain with the captain and says the captain can take one of three items off him in exchange for the ship - because any item on him is magical and will more than pay for the ship. Items are an exquisite silver bell said to possess ‘insert magical quality here’, or a wand that can ‘insert magical quality here’ or his boots that ‘insert magical quality here that faaaaar surpasses the qualities of the bell and the wand’.. Naturally the captain picks the boots because they are better.

Elf happily hands the boots over.

Captain gives ship.

Elf sails away with smirk on his face, as captain puts boots on and realises they’re nothing but bog standard ordinary boots that have absolutely no magic in them whatsoever.

Lol, that’s all I can come up with!

Of course it doesn’t have to be a bell or wand (as the alternative options) it could well be a wedge of cheese or a toothpick or whatever! Haha. Very fun!:)"
 
Thank you, Tammy! I am strangely drawn to the cheese right now… I also feel like I want to ‘insert magical quality here’ every time you say it: that maybe the silver bell can call your true love to you, and with the wand you can command your enemy, make them do whatever you want them to…. And maybe… the boots: I thought at first that the ultimate power would have to be eternal life or something like that, but I’m starting to feel a bit lazy for coming up with these fairly obvious ideas, I’m always wanting to do something different, unexpected. I want to be surprised. I’m looking for the spark.

With the 3 choices, it feels very traditional fairy tale – but even in something that’s been used many times before, you can find something fresh. I think that would be a reason for Elgart falling for the trick. If it’s in threes – he’s thinking, well, elves are bound by things in threes, aren’t they? Isn’t there some law about it, that’s quite fundamental to their kind? And as he’s thinking this, we sense another plume of perfume drifting past his nose… Yes, he’s sure that’s the case, he’s definitely read it somewhere, that elves cannot lie or trick people if the bargain is based on the rule of three. So, this is a great deal. I think I’m going to give him the ship.

If I followed this development to the story, I don’t think I’d have to make major changes to the beginning because it doesn’t interfere with the perfume idea or the overall structure. It’s more a detail, of how the bargaining part unfolds, and it’s something I might use.

Of course once you start choosing ideas that take the story in new directions, the chances are you’ll need to go back and change the beginning. Never start a story with the notion that the beginning is perfect and must not be touched! There’s no such thing with first drafts… Especially if you don’t know the end yet.

The beginning contains a hint of a promise that is some way fulfilled by the end. This is what my brain is roving around as I’m about to consider ideas that will affect the direction of the story. If I follow this path, if these things happen or turn out to be true, I’m asking myself, what will the ending be? And then, inherent in following through with that particular idea, I will also have to ask, what will the beginning be, to set up that ‘promise’ from the start? It’s a fundamental cyclical thing that is part of paving the way for the reader’s satisfaction.

My next, major contributor of ideas is Mariah Bell who writes under the name of M.L. White – Mariah really ‘got in there’ with some amazing brainstorming. She especially got me thinking about character, which I really needed to do at this point, particularly about the elf who’d only just appeared at the end of part 1, and so I’d only thought of him so far from the point of view of Elgart, as this strange, solemn, mysterious and magical being – kind of remote, psychologically. But Mariah’s suggestions began to bring him more alive.

She said: "The Elf needs a magic ship to go somewhere, it's a special place so only magic ships can reach it… maybe this Elf is actually the last of his kind who stayed for some reason, or he was lost, anyways, he wants to go to the place where his people live (maybe he knows exactly where it is, or he has to cross the ocean and then search for them).”  She suggested that “He doesn't intend to trick anyone because he's an Elf and it's very important for him to be honest, or maybe the Elves can't lie.

Now this is a totally different approach to what I was thinking, of the elf as a trickster who cheats Elgart out of a ship, but I think about it, this might be the reason why I came up with that idea about Tammy’s suggestions, this notion that elves can’t lie under the rule of three – because I read all the ideas at once, so things started to become intertwined. Anyway, Mariah goes on to say the elf is “afraid that he won't feel it if someone lies to him, afraid of being tricked, but he doesn't have much choice and has to come to Elgart. There's fear, almost despair, and the sense of being in danger. All those humans around are potential enemies”.

Now, it hadn’t crossed my mind yet that the elf might be vulnerable in some way, because I think I was just seeing it from Elgart’s point of view. Mariah prompted me to wonder why this deal is so important to the elf, and whether he’s desperate for the ship, rather than just someone trying their luck – there’s this other, unknown side to the story that starts sprouting in my mind.

But also, Mariah talking about the specialness of the magic ship and what only it can do – taking the elf home – got me wondering, what is the ship, really? Where did Elgart first get it? Did he get it fairly? I found myself writing the phrase “a trade undone”. I’m not sure what I mean by that, but that’s something I might return to. I’ve got this weird mystery blooming like smoke – like the elf’s magic perfume – telling me there’s something else here to be discovered, a history, which I can’t quite see yet.

Mariah also said:

“You mentioned that Elgart felt unsteady with the solid ground under his boots. Maybe the elven boots will allow him to feel confident wherever he goes, or protect him from falling and that magic would even hold steady any ship when he's aboard…. Elgart doesn't feel at home far from the sea and the Elf doesn't feel at home anywhere in those lands, he's too strange and otherworldly, so this theme is common for them. It is also about disappearing, the ship disappears from view with the last Elf, and a whole era ends with that.”

Oh my goodness, there are so many ideas packed into this one paragraph! Let alone the other ideas Mariah sent me. But I’m just going to pull out a few strands that seem to chime for me. The main thing this is all helping to draw me back to, is the essential marriage between character and plot. This is fundamental to storytelling, but there’s so much that you gradually absorb into your style and techniques of writing over the years, that it can come out intuitively when you’re quite experienced but then you can still sort of consciously “forget” it and only realise it’s missing when you come back to a story after it’s rested. Especially with shorter stories where there’s not a lot of space in which to develop character, and have major changes happen to them like they can in a novella or novel – you can get wrapped up in presenting a kind of atmospheric moment. And you go back to edit it and think, well, who are the characters, really? Why does this story ‘matter’? That’s what characters do.

So I really appreciated this perspective from Mariah. This idea that in some way, the elf and Elgart are very different, but share this fundamental theme in their lives, of being trapped either on land or on the sea, and unable to get back to their original home - without a bit of magic.

What is the magic ship to Elgart, and where is it really from – how did he come by it?

My third and final contributor of ideas is Alessandro Bozzo who is a children’s author, who addressed this question in a completely different way. He said:
​
"What if the Midnight is a fast and reliable vessel that seems pretty normal at first glance but whoever takes the wheel becomes forever cursed by a tentacled sea monster that attaches itself to the ship every full moon at midnight and feasts on the crew, leaving only the captain alive. As long as the captain sacrifices his crew in this way, the sea monster will let him or her live. Elgart was tricked by the previous Captain to purchase the ship and now he's meeting in secret to find a new unsuspecting soul to pass the curse on to because he is going mad from watching his crew being eaten over and over again."

Now that would be a totally different story. Quite horrific. But it would work, definitely. Alex admitted that he didn’t know how the boots would fit in to all of this, but it’s a good, solid story idea.

And I’ve had tentacles on my mind. I realise that sounds strange. But during the worst part of my long COVID, when I couldn’t read, I could barely concentrate on TV, my ideas didn’t ever really stop. In the murky deeps of my imagination, ideas kept appearing and disappearing like strange, bioluminescent fish, pulsing in the dark. I had to keep a notepad next to me on the bed because I had to jot down these odd fleeting ideas for stories. And when I did feel awake enough to settle down and watch something, I had this craving to watch the Blue Planet with David Attenborough. It had begun to feel like home. And… when my mind drifted to my half finished short story, The Midnight Ship, I thought, I really want to put a sea monster in this.

So: you’ve been warned! It won’t be a blood bath – sorry Alessandro, not this time – but I think there will be a tentacled threat snaking your way soon.

But setting all that aside, I think it is time to play Exquisite Corpse, and try for some new story ideas! Bring forth the Socks of Destiny!
​
Next time, it might be your words that I’m pulling out of these socks to create a wild new story idea never imagined before. Oh, and I almost forgot, Alessandro Bozzo and Frasier Armitage have suggested a new hashtag for all this - #socksandtea. So if you want to find other regular players of Exquisite Corpse on Twitter and join in the banter, search that hashtag, use it, and who knows, we might create a trend! 

Exquisite Corpse game play is not transposable... Please listen the last section of the show to enter a realm of deep silliness and inspiration!