Asking yourself unorthodox questions can be a great window into the next fabulous story idea you latch onto. Here’s an example.
For a long time, brick, stone and mostly wood have been used as the standard building materials. Yet lately, I’ve been hearing more and more about the cost effectiveness of steel buildings. Businesses, homes, schools, churches, restaurants … suddenly, everyone is being encouraged to save money by building with steel.
Now, put yourself in a paranoid mindset, not unlike that of Adrian Monk on the USA comedy-mystery, MONK. Think a bit too much about why steel is being pushed onto the American public all of a sudden. Ask yourself silly questions about the possible motive.
Could enemy nations be working on weapons of mass destruction that are attracted to metal buildings, so they’re setting us all up for massive destruction? Now you have the idea behind a Tom Clancy-esque thriller.
Is a supervillain with metal control powers planning a similar slaughter of billions? Sounds like an X-Men versus Magneto plot to me.
There’s a lot of ways to go with even one simple idea like that. All you need to do is ask yourself a silly question.
