The best stuff I read is the stuff that comes out of left field–be it from perspective, relationships, context, or what have you. Looper, for example, caught me unawares because of the concept of having to murder your future self as the final act of your employment. I liked that in the way I like the guessing game that is Gone Girl, where you see two sides of a relationship gone horribly wrong or Room, which introduced me to a perspective I found unique and inviting. What all of these stories have in common is that they made the familiar unfamiliar in a way that made it interesting to engage with the story.
Lets be honest, every story has already been told. Your job as a writer is to find the human interest story within that an tell it from a different angle. Create a scenario–any scenario–and use that scenario to look at character interaction from an angle you haven’t seen before. That is how you stay creative.
Some Thoughts:
- Shout out to Kevin Hearne for agreeing to sit with my creative writing students for a period. The voice of experience and success is often heard more clearly.