ScriptSuperhero.com

One fun writing exercise, I’ve found, to enhance one’s creativity is to offer up some random phrases and challenge yourself to work them into a story you’re working on. It’s something even professional writers do, from the folks at Saturday Night Live to regular sitcom writers. The trick to it, though, is making the phrases seem natural to the story. If they stick out like a sore thumb, that’s considered a failure.

The concept works like this. Say that you’re writing an episode of MONK. You have a standard mystery-comedy format to work with. Then you have someone give you a list of random words and phrases to work into the episode you’re writing, such as dog kennel, space walk, house painting ideas, and toadstools.

In the hands of an average writer, working such phrases into an episode of MONK that revolves around a singer-songwriter who is murdered by their agent might be something they can pull off, but most people will notice that the words seem out of place in the episode.

But for a skilled writer, it’s no challenge at all. For example, imagine this scene:

NATALIE
Mr. Monk, why are you digging through James’ files?

MONK
I’m looking for a clue. Hah! Look at this! At the time of his death, James was looking over some house painting ideas from CertaPro. See this? It’s a collection of color tiles.

NATALIE
So?

MONK
So? So? Don’t you get it, Natalie? A man contemplating suicide isn’t going to sit around wondering what color to paint his house! This was murder. Oh, but what was he thinking here? Fuschia? Fuschia? Maybe it’s good that he’s–

NATALIE
Mr. Monk!

MONK
I’m just saying… I mean… fuschia?

You know what’s frustrating? Having a good idea that you never get around to completing. Case in point: I have a great idea for a graphic novel/comic book script I’ve been sitting on for over two years. It’s great, it’s intense, it’s dramatic and it’s not cliched. Or at least, it wasn’t when I started it.

The project, code-named EMBER, focuses on a young girl with fire-based superpowers who has no interest in her powers because her life’s already filled with too much drama as it is. Of course, the real power of the story is in the specific way I tell it, but the concept is getting less fresh as the months trail into years.

The latest blow to the freshness of the idea was the NBC drama, HEROES. It’s the same general idea, only with a lot of characters. It’s people with superpowers who (other than Hiro) have no particular interest in being heroes because they’re too busy with their own lives.

I have a great artist lined up to work with me on it. But both of our lives have reflected the same general principle as the story we want to tell: I have a solid talent for writing, he has a solid talent for drawing, and yet both of our lives have interfered with us using our talents to tell our tale. We’re too busy to use our talents to finish a tale about a girl too busy to use her talents to save her friends, her school, her state, her world.

Life’s ironic that way, isn’t it?