Brief Summary
Scott Myers provides suggestions for writers to brainstorm effectively. He emphasises the importance of being constantly aware of ideas, intentionally seeking them out daily, and generating a large quantity of ideas to increase the chances of finding good ones. He also highlights the need to assess ideas based on their potential scope, target audience, and unique hook.
- Be aware of ideas around you.
- Intentionally seek out ideas daily.
- Generate a large quantity of ideas.
- Assess ideas based on scope, audience, and hook.
Being Aware of Ideas
Scott Myers suggests that writers should always be sensitive to the ideas that are present all around them. These ideas can be found in various sources such as newspaper articles, conversations in coffee shops, radio broadcasts, and online browsing. He uses the example of David Rabinowitz and Charlie Wachtel, the writers of BlacKkKlansman, who discovered the story through a Facebook article while trying to avoid writing.
Being Intentional About Idea Generation
Myers advises writers to intentionally think about story ideas every day. He shares that he has set goals to come up with an idea a day. He references Dr. Linus Pauling, who said, "The best way to come up with a good idea is to come up with a lot of ideas." Myers recommends generating numerous ideas and keeping a file of them, even if most are not good. This practice helps to exercise the idea-generation muscle, increasing the likelihood of finding worthwhile concepts.
Assessing Ideas
Once ideas are generated, Myers stresses the importance of assessing them. Key questions to ask include whether the idea is substantial enough for a movie, who the target audience is, and what the unique hook is. He uses his experience with selling K-9 as an example, where executives praised the concept of combining the buddy action comedy formula with a "Rin Tin Tin" element. The hook, in this case, was the police dog, which set it apart from other similar movies. He also mentions examples like INCEPTION and GROUNDHOG DAY, highlighting the importance of a unique element that distinguishes the story.
