How to Solve Story Problems Without Logic: Techniques

How to Solve Story Problems Without Logic:

Angus Fletcher’s Techniques for Creative Breakthroughs

It’s not uncommon to find story problems you can’t simply think your way out of.

Forcing it just means looping through through bad ideas that only make the story worse.

But then, in the middle of yoga or the shower or (Billy Wilder’s favorite) on the toilet, inspiration finally strikes. You find a reasonable solution to the story problem. That’s not because you figured it out with System 2 thinking–that’s because you let go.

The problem is that in real-life situations, we don’t often have the time to sit around and wait for inspiration to strike.

With this in mind, Angus Fletcher, professor at Ohio State University’s Project Narrative, has proposed a solution. In his book Creative Thinking: A Field Guide to Building Your Strategic Core, Fletcher outlines four practical techniques to shut off your logical brain and tap into creative problem-solving.

It’s the type of thing that works when brute force fails.

Fletcher outlines four modes of thinking that can help fire up your non-logical circuits: Pluralism, Potential, Inspiration, and Exceptionalism. Included with each is a simple exercise to develop the skill.

(please assume all links are affiliate)

Pluralism: There’s More Than One Right Answer

Pluralism is the belief that there are multiple paths to success. Even in math problems—often considered (incorrectly, of course) a rare domain of absolute truth—there are often several viable ways to reach a valid answer.

(These can often be ranked in terms of efficiency and mental stress, of course, but often times it’s just easier for certain people to look at math problems in different ways.)

If we port this to storytelling, it means that there’s no single “correct” way to alleviate a story problem. What we’re after is satisfying ways. That is, the job isn’t to find the right answer, but rather one that works in concert with others–that is, emotionally, thematically, and dramatically.

Exercise:

Think of a current story problem you’re facing—maybe a character’s motivation, a plot hole, or a weak midpoint. Now:

List three different ways you could solve this problem.
Don’t judge the ideas or worry about perfection.
Any solution that’s good enough is a good chance to move forward.

Accept that good enough is often great. Remember that the final line of Some Like It Hot, “nobody’s perfect,” was a placeholder–Wilder and Diamond thought they’d come up with something better before shooting, but that never happened.

And then…

Potential: What Else Could This Be?

Logic is an excellent tool for many things, but its scope of applicability is ultimately severely limited.* It’s not like you’re going to logic your way out of a plate-throwing fight with your partner.

Creativity wants to explore what it could be.

This is the principle of potential—the idea that any object, event, or story element has multiple uses, depending on context. A knife can cut, sure—but it can also screw in a loose hinge, reflect sunlight, or tap out Morse code.

Exercise:

Pick a simple object within reach—your coffee mug, a pen, your phone charger.

List 20 different uses for it.

>If you’re struggling, imagine you need to kill someone with this object if you hope to survive the next 30 seconds. How are you going to do that with, for example, your phone charger?

Start with the practical, but soon enough you’ll have to resort to the imaginative. That’s what we’re after.
Make sure to include “off-label” uses—even absurd ones.

This exercise reframes ordinary ideas into story possibilities. To solve story problems, let a subplot become a metaphor. Let a side character become a villain. Let a broken watch become a ticking symbol–or, for example, be right twice a day.

*And to deny this–despite the fact that any electronic device, short of malfunctions and hallucinations, works on logic–begs what philosopher Matthew Crawford refers to as “autism as a design principle.” Witness tech-based culture and weep.

Inspiration: Let Randomness Spark Connection

The best new idea might already be floating around right next to you. You may simply not have noticed it.

Fletcher recommends isolating a single data point—a phrase, image, or detail within your story—and speculating about its larger consequences.

In short, let the consequences of something small crack open something big.

Exercise:

Pull a random book off your shelf. The nuttier the better. Religious texts, obviously, are perfect for this.*
Open to a page and put your finger on a sentence. Remove that sentence from all context within the book.
Ask yourself: What could this suggest? What might it mean in a different context?

You can also use Tarot cards, newspaper headlines, or a quote generator. It’s not about magic. To solve story problems, connect a stray input to your story in a new, surprising way.

*Augusten Burroughs famously refers to this practice as “Bible dipping” in Running with Scissors. David Lynch, in Catching the Big Fish, also recounts something similar when trying to understand the theme of Eraserhead: “I got out my bible and started reading. And one day, I read a sentence. And… then I saw the thing as a whole.”

Exceptionalism: Highlight the Irregularities

Exceptionalism means identifying what’s unique, particularly in characters.

Your story might not be working because characters are basically just boring. Maybe the concept feels like a retread. What makes your film different? As if a producer wouldn’t ask the same thing…

So think on it. Have an answer ready. What makes this character, this story, actually different?

Exercise:
Think of four real people you know well. For each, write down:

One thing that’s unique about how they think or behave.
This could be a talent, a chronic flaw, or a weird habit.
Speculate on how that kind of thinking/behavior might apply to a character in your story.

This type of thinking prompts you to move away from archetypes and toward specific, dimensional characters. To solve story problems, this is sometimes precisely what’s necessary to make a narrative click into place.

Creative Thinking as Switches

Fletcher’s four techniques aren’t meant to be used in isolation. Feel free to switch between them or use one (or none) as you see fit.

This means you can force–or summon–a breakthrough by reframing a problem, reimagining its pieces (rather than simply rearranging them) and inviting a spark of randomness in to shake things up for the better.

Think of this as creative engineering. It creates a strategic toolkit for rewiring a broken scene or idea.

The goal is to quit trying to figure things out and start discovering.