2 Story ideas for writing a novel

You can pitch your story ideas on different levels of detail. You can for instance go to microscopic depth as in:

I have an idea to write novel where the main character murders his mother in law and then hides the fact, and the body from his wife, by encasing the corpse in the foundation of their new holiday cottage but a local werewolf is attracted to the smell nobody else can smell and threatens the husband and his family.

That gives you a very clear sense what the book will be about. But you can also work on a novel idea on a very high level. In this article I want to give you two high level novel ideas.

These story ideas are:

  1. the quest, and
  2. the siege.

The idea for the quest or the siege comes from Patricia Duncker. In her article On Narrative Structures in The Creative Writing Coursebook: Forty Authors Share Advice and Exercises for Fiction and Poetry she says the following:

"An American writer once commented to me: 'There are only two kinds of narrative, either the heroine/hero leaves home, or a stranger comes to town.'"

Looking at master narratives Patricia Duncker then continues to identify the above in The Illiad and The Odyssey. The Illiad is a siege narrative and The Odyssey is a quest narrative.

The Illiad tells the story of the siege of Troy while The Odyssey tells about the Greek hero Odysseus ten year journey back home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy.

Thinking about this myself I realized that this is a very good foundational way to approach your story giving you two good story ideas to choose between.

What I mean is this. If you know that your story is a siege or a quest you will be able to make certain decisions about the story, while some will be made for you. You will also know when you are going with the flow and when you are fighting the pattern and either way you can best develop it to suit your story. So what then is the difference between the quest and the siege.

In the quest the story goes in search of something while in the siege the story stays home to protect something. With that as a basic idea let me give you some characteristics of the quest and the siege separately.

The quest

We are more familiar with the quest as a story form. One reason is that we naturally view the story as a journey. There are also enough samples of this. The sub title of The Hobbit is for instance To there and back again. This sums up the quest perfectly. But here are some specifics. The quest story:

There are two kinds of quest stories.

  1. The hero/ine goes on a quest to find something hidden or far away
  2. The hero/ine takes something valuable away to hide it from other searchers

A story from the point of view of soldiers having to protect a position or a place is a siege story of the second kind (We were soldiers, The kingdom of heaven).

A story from the point of view of a target taken away to be protected is a quest story of the first kind (Terminator). A story from the point of a hobbit set on destroying a ring is a quest of the first kind (Lord of the Rings).

The siege

We are less familiar with the siege but only mention Troy and the basic idea is suddenly clear. When you start thinking about it there are many more stories that can be classified as a siege. A siege story:

There are also two kinds of siege stories.

  1. The hero/ine stays home to protect something valuable from foreign invasion
  2. The hero/ine invades a home to take something valuable

Troy is a story from both siege perspectives. A story from the point of view of the burglars trying to steal a treasure from a vault is a siege story of the second kind (Oceans 11). So is a story about a prisoner trying to get out of prison (Shawshank Redemption, Alcatraz).

Story ideas and the character's journey

Independently of whether the story is a siege or a quest the characters goes through a journey. This can also be described as the character arc. In a quest story the character's journey and the story is frequently analogous. When the character leaves his/her home it is also clear that familiar ideas and surroundings are left behind.

In a siege story the same journey happens for the character but the analogy to the story is not so clear. The character will leave the familiar behind in a different way and engage with their journey much more psychologically or symbolically.

A character that goes on a quest is a character that searches out a change in their lives or themselves. This search may be knowing or unknowing. A siege character will rather seek to take a stand and where they have before changed would now keep to their beliefs.

There are stories that are exclusively a siege or a quest story but there are also stories that mix them. It is not strange to find a quest alternating with a siege. A character may go on a quest to find something valuable only to find themselves besieged because somebody else now wants what they have.

Although the siege and the quest have ancient origins and is easily explained in these terms it does not mean we cannot work for them in contemporary settings. A romance story is for instance nothing other than a siege. The heroine builds a castle around herself that the hero needs to invade in order to win her heart.

What to do with these story ideas

Determine whether your main character needs to change or need to stay steadfast. If change is needed see what the journey could be. If steadfastness is required see what needs to be protected. This way you can determine where your story is coming from.

Both the siege and the quest are two basic meta narrative story ideas. You can use them as a springboard to develop your story. Now back to my idea at the top. What type of story is it? It can be any one of 4 story ideas.

We have a family, a werewolf and a half built house with a dead mom in law in the foundation.

Gerhi Janse van Vuuren