How to Generate and Critique Story Ideas (Part 3): Images

Take a clue from Alfred Hitchcock whose movie North by Northwest had its origin with a single image of a scene he had in mind.

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” Those are the words of Dr. Linus Pauling, the only person to ever win two Nobel Prize Awards. This is sage advice, especially for writers. A strong story concept is one key to the commercial viability of a novel, short story, or screenplay.

Over the next two weeks, I will run a ten-part series: How to Generate and Critique Story Ideas.

Today in Part 3: Images.

On Twitter — and please forgive me, whoever you are, but I did not copy your moniker — someone suggested an image is a good way to inspire story ideas.

Indeed, one of the great Hitchcock thrillers began with an image. Here is an excerpt from a post I did on screenwriter Ernest Lehman:

One day Hitchcock said, “I’ve always wanted to do a chase across the face of Mount Rushmore.” Terrific, I thought, and wrote it down. He told me all the ideas he wanted to do, and I wrote them down. Lots and lots of ideas. He wanted to do a sequence with the longest dolly shot in history, taking place at the assembly line of the Ford Motor company. It would start at the beginning of the assembly line. The camera follows a car being put together before it’s driven off the assembly line and they discover there’s a body in the backseat. He always wanted to do a scene in the General Assembly of the United Nations. Somebody is giving a speech to the Assembly and refuses to continue until the delegate from Peru wakes up. So someone taps the delegate from Peru, and he falls over dead. I wrote all these ideas down, but the only idea that is actually in the picture is the chase across Mount Rushmore. I also wrote out a list of possible protagonists, like a Frank Sinatra-type singer, or a famous sports announcer, or a newspaper man or a Madison advertising executive. I decided the easiest thing for me to write was a Madison Avenue advertising executive, not because I knew any, but because I know how to stereotype him.

That’s right. North by Northwest started with an image in Hitchcock’s mind: A chase across the face of Mount Rushmore.

Years ago, I remember reading an article on the Coen brothers in which they said the initial moment of inspiration for their movie Miller’s Crossing was a hat blowing in the wind through a forest. You can see that image in this clip at the :20 mark:

In fact, hats are a visual motif in Miller’s Crossing tied to theme, witness this dialogue:

Verna: What’re you chewin’ over?
Tom: Dream I had once. I was walkin’ in the woods, I don’t know why. Wind came up and blew me hat off.
Verna: And you chased it, right? You ran and ran, finally caught up to it and you picked it up. But it wasn’t a hat anymore and it changed into something else, something wonderful.
Tom: Nah, it stayed a hat and no, I didn’t chase it. Nothing more foolish than a man chasin’ his hat.

“Nothing more foolish than a man chasin’ his hat.”

An image may not only inspire a story idea, it can become part of an important narrative theme.

So as you bandy about in search of the Next Great Spec Script Idea, whenever an image pops into your mind, don’t let it escape into the ether. Catch it, play around with it, ponder it.

It may lead you to a great story.

Part 1: What if…
Part 2: Halliwell’s Film Guide

Tomorrow: Part 4 of the series How to Generate and Critique Story Ideas.