Twelve Ways to Generate Story Ideas
As a fellow writer, I hope that you have a notebook of ideas in your backpack or desk drawer. This way, when you are “running dry,” you can restart your writing process.
Barring a physical ailment, I personally doubt the existence of writer’s block. However, I firmly believe in avoidance which is exactly what it sounds like: you avoid writing or when you sit down to write, you find a million and one other ways to spend your writing time.
How can you get over avoidance?
Avoidance is real, and it can have many sources, psychological or physical. Only you can get to the bottom of why you are avoiding the act of writing. Only you can find the reason for avoiding your current story.
Perhaps you secretly hate your writing area. Or maybe you are fearful that your story has no purpose. Maybe your family is not supportive.
Avoidance is usually based in pain or fear. Find the source of pain or fear, and root it out!
Meanwhile, nurture the writing habit by generating story ideas. If you haven’t started your idea notebook, we will wait while you run to the corner drugstore and pick up a new spiral.
Good, you’re back!
Story ideas are easily derived and in limitless supply. If you are determined to be an author — and you are — then do not make the lack of ideas your excuse for not writing.
Here are some quick methods for filling your notebook:
Read books.
Yes, I give you permission to steal ideas from other authors. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy wins girl back. (Or vice versa.) This is the plot of the majority of romances on the market. It’s not the idea that is important so much as what the writer does with the idea.
Let’s try a more specific plot idea. A man travels back in time to change X event so that Y catastrophe will not happen in the future. This has been done so many times! Again, it isn’t the idea but the execution that counts. Each author tells the story in their own way.
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” — Mark Twain, a Biography
Read the newspaper.
You can skip the murders if you’re not a whodunit author, but there are plenty of other ideas to tear from the headlines. You can find your next book idea by asking yourself “what if” questions about current events.
On Friday, January 5, 2018, the Houston Chronicle ran an article entitled “Two flaws a major cause for concern” about flaws in the CPUs of nearly every computer on earth “that can allow an attacker to grab the data being crunched inside the [CPU] chip.”
Story idea! You don’t even have to write a high tech story. What if the so-called flaw was in the human brain? What if there were certain people who could grab your thoughts — every thought you ever had — just by being near you?
A similar story, Mind Writer by Mike Lynch and Lisa Godfrees, was published in 2016. The main character in their story has the ability to transfer a person’s thought, memories, and personality into a clone. And in this world, that is how those in power stay in power. What a nightmare.
Watch news programs, YouTube, and documentaries.
Always be learning new things and looking for inspiration. Make it a regular exercise to write an idea and riff on it by improvising variations.
Watch music videos by your favorite artists on YouTube. Many people try to illustrate what they think a song is about, and their videos can spark many great story ideas. The emotions you feel as you watch are what you are trying to capture. Pay attention to emotions, and take the time to figure out how to write it down.
Listen to classical music for inspiration.
Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, the famous movies by Disney, illustrate what can happen when artists listen to classical selections and let their minds wander. That’s where “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” came from. And who can forget “Night on Bald Mountain?” Images and story snippets will develop of their own volition as you listen. Take the time to let the images form in your mind as you sink into a dream state. Then write out what you see.
Ask yourself questions about what you see.
As you drive or walk somewhere, ask yourself how something came to be the way it is. But don’t go research the facts unless you write historical fiction. Instead, speculate.
Make up your own take on the backstory for a person or place or object. How did that come to be? How did that odd group of people get together? Why are they friends? Why does a person act that way? Who does she go home to every night? What famous person does she know and how? Where is that family traveling? What momentous event will happen when they get there? When will they ever get to return? Will they get to return? Why or why not?
Let your imagination take over. Write down every idea and then create variations. Choose the best ones.
Select the best TV series to watch.
When you reach the end of each episode, ask yourself what will happen next. Write some fan fiction about how you wish the story would go. There. You have a story idea. Go and make it your own.
Listen for snatches of conversation and create a story that includes interesting bits of dialogue you overhear.
Start with unlikely opposites.
An orphan boy who lives under his uncle’s stairs turns out to be the most powerful wizard of his day. (Thanks, J. K. Rowling!)
A barren woman becomes the mother of a nation. (Like Sarah in Genesis.)
A billionaire puts his money in a trust and chooses to live on the streets, fighting for the underdog. (If only Batman was this cool.)
A former prisoner saves the world that enslaved him. (Like Joseph, Sarah’s great-grandson.)
A freedom fighter falls in love with an enemy soldier. (I’m sure there’s a novel like this, but I can’t think of a title.)
Use writing prompts.
There are thousands of writing prompts on-line and in print. A writing prompt can be as simple as one word, like “cotton.” Or it can be a sentence. I was part of a group that responded to the prompt, “The rats were in the cheese again.” We had so much fun.
Sometimes prompts are lines of dialogue:
- “You shouldn’t have come back.”
- “The culling happens tonight.”
- “We are out of ammunition.”
- “I used to love him, but…”
A writing prompt might be a complete scenario, like: A group of strangers makes a dangerous trip together. Hostile forces want to kill them, and their only shot at survival is to learn to work together. This is the kernel for John Ford’s Stagecoach, but the same kernel could as easily be about a sea voyage, a journey to the center of the earth, or a mission to Mars.
It’s not the idea; it’s the execution. Schedule time to practice responding to writing prompts because writing leads to more ideas.
Pay attention to your dreams.
Dreams are uncensored fragments from the creative side of your brain. Most of mine are too silly to mention, but occasionally, I have an idea that’s so crazy it just might work. I have read that dreams are like restarting a computer, that dreams are essential to brain health. Whatever the reason, they can be a source of ideas. I rarely wake long enough to write about mine, but I know others who have turned their ideas into full-blown novels.
Participate in video and role-playing games.
Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis and a group of associates used to play Dungeons & Dragons together, and their games inspired a series of novels in the Dragonlance universe. In role-playing, participants practice the skill of taking on a character’s persona and facing challenges with a group of players. Hickman and Weis developed a long timeline and mapped geography for their novels, and several other authors have created side stories in the same universe.
World-building skills are critically important in these games, and playing these games can spark story ideas.
Use the process of writing to spark ideas.
I hinted about using the process in the point about using writing prompts above. But the process of writing itself can trigger ideas. Writing is a process, after all, so start with a nugget or a kernel of an idea and ask questions. Write about anything that pops into your head. Brainstorm. Hypothesize. Visualize. Follow the rabbit trails.
Beginning writers sometimes have the mistaken notion that a story arrives fully formed, but in reality, a story idea usually develops with work. Writers write. Keep writing about one idea, and other ideas will form. You will NOT run out of ideas. Writing for the sake of writing is a discipline worth pursuing.
I recommend keeping a notebook and writing your ideas by hand. Be messy. Doodle. Make diagrams. Writing on paper with pen uses both sides of your brain, but if you have trouble with handwriting, as my dysgraphic daughter does, then do the same exercises on your device of choice.
Write!
Generating new story ideas on a regular basis, perhaps once a week, will build your confidence. You will build a huge backlog of usable plot ideas. Whenever you feel that you are “running dry,” go back to the methods above to prime the pump and get your writing flowing again.
Story ideas are everywhere, but they are easily forgotten. Make sure to capture them at the earliest opportunity in your notebook or smart phone. Take a picture, if possible, to remind you of that oh-so-fleeting thought. Most often, that precious, golden nugget will not return once it is forgotten.
I would love to hear your favorite method of brainstorming story ideas. Please share in the comments below. Also share this post on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Originally published at www.wordmarkeredits.com on January 15, 2018.
