What if a tornado lands a confused young girl from Kansas in a faraway land with no way to get home but with the help of an inaccessible magician?
What if a giant shark terrorizes a Long Island beach community and the small town sheriff is forced to deal with the creature?
What if a detective must find out who killed a man on a train when half the passengers had a motive for the murder?
Get the idea? When I sit down and start plotting out a book, I always ask myself the 'what if' question. If I can't put my plot into that single sentence, I am not doing my job and chances are, I will not be able to plot out a decent book. Sometimes that question is short and simple while other times is a run-on sentence. But whatever the 'what if' is, it should be clear and the reader should care about the question. After all, the question begins with a 'quest.'
What if a woman with a checkered past finally finds happiness but a stalker threatens to destroy the new life she's built for herself? This is the question posed in my other brand new book, Dance for Me.
What are some of your favorite What if's?
4 comments:
Oh, I love the "what if" game! :)
And I think they sometimes point to an author's theme. I tend to love the kind of movies and books that band together misfits who would never be friends (as in Pirates of the Caribbean or Lord of the Rings), so some of my favorite what ifs revolve around "what if so-and-so and such-and-such, who can't stand each other, must work together to (fill in the blank)?" Another theme I love: "What if her weakness, the thing he/she hates most about herself, is the very thing that will save him?" Those make for very interesting twists. :)
I love those misfit what if's too, Anne Marie. They always make for great conflict.
Fun. What if a mild mannered psychiatrists is really a serial killer? What if two aging brothers take in a nephew? What if friends become lovers? What if a stake film crew goes to a Middle Eastern country to rescue people being held there? What if a Western takes place on a distant planet in the galaxy far far away?
LOL Rita. What if I call you Oscar;-)
Post a Comment