So you want to write a story, you just don’t know what story yet. Here are a few techniques to come up with story ideas:
Fan Fiction.
First off, let me start with saying that Fan fiction has a bad reputation. It’s not all about putting together two characters that have no romantic relationship in the source material, subtext or no subtext, whatsoever, adding a lot of sex and putting it on the web for everyone to get disturbed by. Fan fiction is really just obsessing over a story so much, that you start altering it and adding to it. Sometimes that is because fans can’t get enough of a story and like to imagine themselves living inside the story. Sometimes they do it because they didn’t like a turn the story took and retell it the way they want to see it play out. Either way, both are great ways to find story ideas. Something I like to do is write down what I think a story is about before I actually read or watch it. I’m sure there are a lot of stories which you are aware of, but haven’t actually watched or read yourself yet. Stories that are so omnipresent that you still have an idea of what they are about or what some of the plot elements are. So when you sit down to read/watch that story, you have an expectation of the story you’re about to experience, but usually, find that it is actually quite different from what you had assumed. That’s why I write down what I expect, this way if the story turns out to be different; I have a good starting point for my own story. Another thing to do is to pay attention to when you stopped liking a story. What twist or character element disappointed you? Pay attention to why you liked a story originally and what changed that made you stop liking it. Going with that you then have a starting point for telling a similar story, which goes in the direction you want it to go.
Dreams.
Do you want to know a great way for unlocking pure creativity? Early morning sleep. Meaning, waking up early in the morning, getting out of bed, turning off your alarm clock – and then going back to sleep. What most likely will happen, is that you start dreaming – dreams which you might even remember once you’ve woken up. This is not a way to get a full story idea, but it’s a great start to come up with some interesting elements for a story. What I do is, I write down the more interesting, vivid dreams in a notebook (again, do yourself a favor and just go straight to digital if you can) right after I wake up. Usually, you have to write dreams down right away, because they fade fast. I’m not an advocate for writing down all your dreams, or even using them one to one in your story. Truth is, most dreams are a weird mix of abstract nonsense. But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep and use the good stuff.
What If…
My favorite example of the “What if…”-technique is the one writer Neil Gaiman gave in this interview: “What if a werewolf bites a goldfish?”. This perfectly sums up what the “What if…”-technique is; random musing. You’re bored and you find yourself wondering “What if…a portal to another world opens and an ocean starts spilling over into our world? How long would it flood over? Where would all that water eventually go? What would the damage be?”. You play through random scenarios and try to figure out what their logical outcome would be. Stephen King is famous for this approach. He generally starts his stories with a situation that can be summed up with “What if…”, puts one or a couple of characters in that situation and sees how it plays out. An example is Under the Dome – What if a town was suddenly cut off from the outside world, trapped inside an invisible dome? The great thing about starting your story with “What if” is that it usually means that you can start writing right away and don’t need to first develop ideas further.
Suppose…
In Agatha Christie’s Spiders Web the main character Clarissa likes to play a game she calls “Suppose…”. She tries to imagine herself in various scenarios and how she would act. “Suppose…I would have to get rid of a body, how would I do that?”. The suppose-game is a great way to come up with story ideas. The difference between “Suppose” and “What if” is that “Suppose” is more character-focused. “What if” is about how to get out of a bad situation or how to deal with consequences of the initial situation. It’s about what happens to a character and how that character reacts. “Suppose” is more about a character’s own drive, how she acts. With “Suppose” you usually start with yourself “Suppose…I would find a backpack full of 100 Euro notes in a public restroom, what would I do?” and let your imagination run wild on how that scenario plays out.
People.
One of my story ideas has no real plot; I don’t really know what happens in the story or what it is about. But I do know its characters. A great story idea can start with someone you find fascinating and who you want to learn more about, by writing about them. It’s maybe someone you’ve seen on the train. That middle-aged man who nervously reads through a book on how to nail a job interview. Maybe he’s a job seeker on his way to an interview. Maybe he has been out of work for a long time and this is an opportunity he can’t afford to screw up. And while you wonder who that person is, you study their exterior. “Not the kind of person most hiring managers are looking to hire”, you think to yourself. He’s going to have a tough time, they are probably going to tear him apart. Stories that start with a character are about a person who you can’t stop thinking about. Someone who is weird, unusual, for whom you feel sorry and so on. Odds are, if you like to write stories, you are interested in people. Maybe not in the “hey, let’s sit down and have a long chat”-kind of way, but you do think about why people are who they are and do what they do. So all you have to do is pay attention to the people you find yourself wondering about and ask yourself what their story could be.
A Topic.
Stories are meant to entertain, first of all. So telling a story just because you want to find an outlet to release all the information you have accumulated on a topic, isn’t a good idea. But what you can do, is keep your eyes open for stories that take place within that topic. Say you are unusually, and a bit disconcertingly, obsessed with the TV-Show Mayday, which is all about why airplanes crash. You are drawn to the topic because of the drama, the horror but also because of the heroism that was shown by both crew members and passengers who found themselves in such a situation. By how some people act and others freeze, by the miracles that sometimes happen. But your family and friends not only have no interest in discussing plane crashes, they also don’t want to hear about it (especially not when they’re about to board an airplane themselves). So you’re left with no other choice than to write a story about it, right? Partly right. A topic is a great place to look for a story (say the heroism of one brave flight attendant getting all her passengers safely out of the plane) but it isn’t the story itself. So if you start with a topic, make sure that you still keep the focus on finding an actual story to tell, not on the bits of knowledge you want to cover in the story.
Plot Wheels, Writing Prompts and The Like.
Let me start by saying this: “No.”. No, writing prompts, plot wheels or the like are not a great way to find story ideas. Why? Because most likely, you have no interest in the prompts you get. Taking a number of random elements to bind into a story is a great way to have high school students write an essay, but not to find your story. Maybe you think differently about this, but for me personally, I have no interest in writing just to practice my writing. Just like a musician doesn’t just practice random notes, don’t just write random stuff. Practice the notes that make up the song you want to play. Write the stuff that makes up the kind of story you want to experience. Write about something that interests you. That said, I’m not saying that writing prompts, of any kind, can’t work out. I once had to write a short story, in school, out of a bunch of random words and not only did I love writing that story but it was actually pretty good. But that’s just the one time I remember when chance had thrown me a bunch of words that sparked some inspiration. I also have a ton of other stories I had to write under similar circumstances and they are unreadable. I’m not saying, don’t ever use writing prompts, but I would argue that they shouldn’t be your starting point. Maybe try out the above techniques first and if you still come up empty, you can always use some writing prompts such as Plot Generator as your plan B.
I hope some, if not all, of these techniques will help you to come up with ideas for your own story. If you need a bit more insight on what the process of coming up with story ideas looks like, you’ll find an overview here.