My previous post considered the role of ideas in writing, especially fiction. The bottom line: ideas are important but not the most important factor in creating a story. Ideas are a starting  point, but the real work is turning them into a plot and actually sitting down at the keyboard to pound it out.

Even before that, though, comes the work of considering all the ideas and figuring out which ones have the legs to carry a story. I have lots of ideas. They’re everywhere. Usually the starting point is something that happened, and I start thinking about the whys and hows, twisting the possibilities to find interesting possibilities.

For instance, there was a story a few days ago in the NY Times about the 1990s art theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, a crime still unsolved. Anything that’s still a mystery has lots of possibilities. Inside job? How was someone convinced to do this? What happened to the art, which has never been located?  How does it affect some collector who can never show off his prizes? Can you imagine being an heir finding some of these paintings in your late uncle’s secret vault? What do you do?

Or consider a more average story about a murder-suicide. Happens a lot, unfortunately. But what if it was actually a double murder made to look like a murder-suicide? What happens if the victims turn out to have no obvious connection to each other?

Even an ordinary traffic accident might be something more sinister.

So, there you have a few ideas, but none of them are stories yet. The one about the heir finding stolen art work is close since it has an inherent conflict established, but it needs more development to become a story.

I hope this makes the point that it takes more than an idea. You have to take that idea and rub it up against something else to create a story. Another idea. A problem or a challenge. Put a character into the idea in a way that will make him or her uncomfortable—or worse. Then you watch what happens and how the character tries to resolve his problem.

Not all ideas work out. I’ve come up with some great situations but can’t find the right character or characters to make it into a story. Sometimes ideas I think are going to work just kind of fizzle out or don’t go anywhere. The main conflict isn’t clicking or the resolution is too obvious. Too often, I can’t take what sounded like a great idea and make it into something that’s actually interesting. Occasionally I get a great story but can’t come up with a satisfying resolution.

I know I’m not the only author who has a folder full of half-written stories sitting on their hard drive. Every now and again I go back through them, and occasionally I even have a breakthrough and realize where I was trying to go with one of them. It’s particularly satisfying when that happens.