Unstuck

BASICS 102: Testing Ideas for Substance

You can play with genre expectations. They are not set in stone. Some of the more fun things to do is tweak them or break them: damsel in distress saves the day, the couple in a romance break up in the end, stuff like that.

You can also merge genres. This is risky. Many genre-merges just don't work very well. It depends on what you mix. Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer, I don't know about that. Warm Bodies, sure, sounds fun.

The more experience you have writing a genre, the more you can be original about it. The newer you are, the more I suggest you stay in your lane.

**One last note on genre. Fanfiction is not a genre. It is on this site but it doesn't tell you much about the story. Fanfiction stories range from horror to romance to action to parody. Try to think of at least one other genre to classify your story.

WHAT IF QUESTION:
    I'm sorry if these are all movie terms but they're helpful for everyone. The WHAT IF QUESTION is technically your idea. It's the very basic core of why you wanted to write this. It's that moment where you thought, hey, I have something! You just need to turn it into a question.

Let's try and collectively do a few examples of common stories on Wattpad (and you can correct me on these or try to make your own):

AFTER: "What if a virginal good girl gets involved with a charming yet troubled degenerate?"

DARK AND DANGEROUS LOVE: "What if a slave girl gets caught up in a love triangle between a vampire, a lord and her childhood sweetheart?"

ROOMMATES: "What if two college students forced to room together fall in love?"

THE GOOD GIRL'S BAD BOYS: "What if a bunch of bad boys get infatuated with protecting this nerd?"

    All these sound very simple because romances tend to rely heavily on two incompatible people falling for each other but the point I'm trying to make is that they all sell an INITIAL CONCEPT that inspired them. Those stories aren't about just that, but that is the main sell. They will build upon this.

Wanna try a few more this time with movies since Romance tends to be the main thing and we didn't get much variety?

AVENGERS: "What if the fate of the earth relied on a bunch of superheroes working together?"

GONE GIRL: "What if a man woke up one day to his wife missing and people thinking he murdered her?"

MONSTERS INC: "What if there are actually monsters in your closet and their entire world functions on the industry of scaring?"

SUICIDE SQUAD: "What if we formed a team of bad guys to defeat an even bigger bad guy?"

SAUSAGE PARTY: "What if food had feelings?"

    As you can see some of these can be shorter. We can just say for Monsters Inc, what if monsters are real? That's an idea too but the more specific part is that the myth of them coming out of your closet is real. That's where the idea really starts to become unique.
Basically, try to find a happy medium with a sentence that's short, sweet but also gets to the point.

    Through reading this sentence, the title and your genre, the reader can usually imagine a vague way that this is going to go. Like Avengers: superheroes forced together, Sci-Fi Superhero. Probably lots of action, superpowers, a larger than life bad guy and some comedy. No one is going to be watching gore here or Tony Stark's deep daddy issues. 

LOGLINES:
    Loglines are used in the movie industry to pitch movies. They are like the one sentence hook that might get that investor in the elevator with you to say, hmm that sounds cool, here's my card.
    Now you might be thinking, I am writing a fanfic on Wattpad, what the fuck do I need this for? Well, for a couple of reasons:
    -A log-line is a good indication that you have a good story that uses its strongest sell. Like I said with Monsters Inc, it's not just about monsters, it's about the monster in the closet and the industry. Monsters are boring. That concept is fire.
    -A log-line is also helpful when writing summaries because it tells you how to keep them short yet interesting. If this is what you'll use to bait big guys, you can sure as hell use it to bait readers.
    -A log-line is a selling tool and in a website where stories are in abundance, you want to sell yourself as quickly as possible.
    -A reader will decide on whether to click 'read' on your story in about three seconds. You don't have time to write your manifesto. Narrow in on a sell and run with it. If they do click it, then they can be kept there through your other sells.