Most fiction writers have no problem finding new subjects to write about. The difficult and time-consuming part of creativity is developing a plot, creating characters, and making the subject come to life. One useful tool many writers use to brainstorm new plots is what might be called "the What If Game". You take a known fact, ask "what if?", and add a twist. Let’s look at some possible mystery/suspense examples from the computer world.
Fact: When you delete a file from your hard drive, the file is still there.
Details: Computer hard drives are like videotapes. Once something is recorded on them the only way to remove that
information is to either record something new over it or to use an industrial magnet to wipe the drive clean. Deleting a
file merely tells your computer that the file’s space is now available for new material to be recorded.
What If:John Doe makes his living refurbishing used computers and selling them to local students. He routinely
checks the hard drives to see if there are any supposedly deleted software programs that he can copy and sell on the
black market. One day he’s checking a computer that he bought cheap at a government auction and he runs across some
important secret documents. What will he do? How will this change his life?
User Tips: (a) There are businesses that can retrieve deleted files for you. If you just destroyed an important
file that you can’t live without, immediately shut down your computer and hit the yellow pages. If you keep using your
computer there’s a good possibility that new files will be recorded over the one you want to retrieve. (b) You can buy
programs that really do delete a file by writing over its space with gibberish. This may be a good thing to do before
you give away or sell your old machine.
Fact: Your computer monitor is a tiny broadcaster.
Details: The monitor doesn’t send a strong signal, but anyone who has the proper equipment can sit in a van
across the street from you and see and record everything that appears on your screen.
What If:John Doe is a private investigator working for a bank. He’s parked in a residential neighborhood
monitoring the computer screen of Jim, a bank employee who is suspected of embezzlement. The suspect is using a lonely
heart’s chat room to look for a date. John suddenly realizes that the woman sending Jim hot emails is Jane Doe, John’s
wife. What’s she doing? How will this change his life?
User Tips: Shielded monitors are available for agencies and businesses that need security, although not all those
who should use them do so. Fortunately, the equipment needed to pick up a monitor’s broadcast is generally too
expensive and the effort too tedious for crooks to bother spying on the average person.
Fact: Most people are very careless about their computer passwords.
Details: Women tend to use the names of their husbands, boyfriends, children, pets, etc. Men tend to use the
names of sports teams, cars, boats, etc. You can often figure out someone’s password simply by looking at what’s on
their desk at work. Even worse, those with complicated passwords often write them on a piece of paper and tape it onto
the computer itself.
What If: Jane Doe is a specialist in industrial espionage. She’s finagled herself a job working for a cleanup
crew that does office buildings during the evening. She spends her spare time trying to open any computer that she can
crack to see if there’s anything of interest. One night she’s in the office of the head engineer of the company,
John. She’s checking his desk for anything that might provide a clue as to his password when she discovers a framed
photograph of herself inside a desk drawer. It’s a picture of her when she was a junior in college. What’s it doing
there? How will this change her life?
User Tips: System administrators like passwords that cannot be found in dictionaries, are about 8 characters
long, use both upper and lower case letters, and have numbers in them. If your job requires you to change passwords
every 6 weeks, the easiest method is to use a list of some kind. For example, birds of Texas. Pick a name, strip out
most of the vowels and add a number that means something to you, like your high school graduation year. Thus bluebird
might become Blubrd85. Six weeks later, grackle becomes 85gracKl. You can use any list, such as spices, dogs, cities in
France, etc. Even if someone finds your list, they still won’t know password.
Once you’ve used the What-If game to find a subject, your next step will be to research the details on the Internet.