Arts & Entertainment, Writing
Other Rich Sources of Ideas
Lesson time 08:27 min
There are so many ways to find inspiration for your story. Here, Bob points to some that might surprise you—television and movies, titles, and topics.
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Topics include: Get Ideas From Movies and Television • Develop an Idea From a Catchy Title • Use a Topic as Your Starting Point • You Only Need One Good Idea
Teaches Writing for Young Audiences
The Goosebumps author teaches you how to generate ideas, outline a plot, and hook young readers from the first page.
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If you want to write and you want to get ideas, you have to use everything. You have to be alert and open to everything-- everything you read, everything you listen to, everything. You have to allow these things to inspire you. When I was a kid, some of the early TV shows have inspired my writing a lot. And of course, all those 1950s horror films are, you know, you can recognize them in Goosebumps. When we were kids, my brother and I used to go see a horror movie every Saturday afternoon. They had Tom and Jerry cartoons and then a horror movie every Saturday. And we saw all the films-- The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Walks Among Us, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, It Came from Beneath the Sea-- all these great titles. And I think you can recognize some of them as Goosebumps titles, because most Goosebumps titles, they're sort of like '50s horror movies. But, you know, I remember these films from my childhood. I remember them. And then you can, like, borrow the germ of an idea from it, and you can take it and adapt it in your own way. I was a huge Twilight Zone fan. Rod Serling is a big, big hero of mine. And I know a lot of Goosebumps stories have come from, you know-- without even intending it-- have come from my memory of Twilight Zone episodes that I watched back in the day. And this is a great way for-- a very important way, I think-- to get inspiration, just from all the things that you read and the things you love. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] A good title is a real attention grabber that doesn't give anything away. Doesn't really tell you anything. It just, it establishes a little bit about the book. I did a Fear Street book called Give Me a K-I-L-L. So you know it's a cheerleader book, and you know someone's going to die, but that's it. It's an attention getter. That's all. It tells you a little bit of the premise, a little bit about what you're going to get, but it doesn't really tell you anything. I have to admit that I, you know, I've written so many books now that I don't really try to think of ideas anymore. I never try to think of ideas. I only think of titles. I had this great title that I loved. It was Little Shop of Hamsters. It's a great title, right? But, you know, then I'm thinking, how do you make hamsters scary? That's the challenge. And so I'm thinking, well, what if there's a giant hamster? Or what if there are 1,000 hamsters? And what if a boy is trapped in a place, someplace with 1,000 hamsters or something? But all my books now come from titles. I just think of the title and then work out the story from there. I know that's backward for most authors. Most authors get an idea for a story. They start to write. Later on, they think of the title. But I always had the title first, always start with the title, and it leads me to another story. There's a book I want to write that they won't let me write called Morons from Mars. I love that title. And I submitted it to my ed...
About the Instructor
Award-winning novelist R.L. Stine wrote jokes and funny stories for 20 years before he switched gears and became a horror-writing legend. Since then, the author of the Goosebumps and Fear Street series has sold more than 400 million copies. In his first-ever online writing class, Bob takes the fear out of crafting fiction. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, you’ll learn new ways to conquer writer’s block, develop plots, and build nail-biting suspense that will thrill young readers.
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R.L. Stine
The Goosebumps author teaches you how to generate ideas, outline a plot, and hook young readers from the first page.
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