There are no original plots in a story. There are only original ways to tell a story using details that are unique to that particular setting. If you keep trying to come up with an original story, you’ll waste your time.
“Alien”, which came out in 1979, might seem like an original idea about a monster terrorizing crew members on a star ship, but it’s the exact same plot as “It! The Terror From Beyond Space“, which came out in 1958. Pick any movie and chances are extremely good you can find an earlier movie with a nearly identical plot.
Rather than try to come up with an original plot, it’s far easier to focus on telling a unique story. What matters isn’t the plot but the story setting and details that shape how your hero will pursue a specific goal. Someone living in the present day will pursue a goal far differently than someone living in the Old West.
First, start with an emotional goal because the best stories are driven by emotion such as love, revenge, fear, anger, or respect. Once you know the intense emotional goal your hero wants, then you can choose how to tell that story as:
- A high concept fantasy idea
- A realistic, unusual idea
High concept basically sets a story in a fantastic world. Look at the following story idea:
“A woman falls in love with a man.”
Falling in love is an emotion everyone can understand, but right now this story idea is too generic. A high concept idea might provide a unique problem like this:
“A woman falls in love with a man, but the man is a reptile man who has been captured and held in a secret government lab.” – “The Shape of Water”
By simply tacking on a fantasy, high concept idea to an existing emotional goal, we’ve created a unique story that will create original obstacles for the hero to overcome. Change the high concept idea and you get a story like this:
“A woman falls in love with a man, but the woman is a mermaid.” – “The Little Mermaid”
Take the same emotional goal and tack on a realistic but unusual idea and you might get this:
“A woman falls in love with a man, but the man lives in another city on the other side of the country.” – “Sleepless in Seattle”
Notice this more realistic but unusual setting also creates a unique story with original obstacles for the hero to overcome.
Come up with a different realistic setting and you might get this:
“A woman falls in love with a man, but she’s only met this man online and doesn’t realize he’s actually her biggest rival in the book store industry.” – “You’ve Got Mail”
Notice that the same emotional goal can drive the same story, but each story poses different types of obstacles based on their unique setting? Change the setting and the plot remains the same, but the specific details will always change.
So the two-step process to creating an original story is:
- Create a strong emotional goal for the hero to pursue.
- Define a high concept or realistic idea that provides unique obstacles for the hero to overcome to achieve their emotional goal.
When creating your own stories, always start out with a strong emotional goal for your hero because such an emotional goal creates the foundation for your entire story. Then come up with several high concept, fantasy ideas and several realistic ideas to see which one you like best for creating the unique obstacles your hero must overcome.
The more ideas you create, the more you’ll have to choose. Then you can pick the best one for the story you want to tell.
Sign up to take a FREE course about how to write scenes in a screenplay.
