1 Use a story starter. In some cases, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Others have created lists of great story ideas for you to build off. Story starters or story prompts are pre-written scenarios or phrases you can use as jumping-off points for stories. You can find story starters as exercises in writing classes, in writing group newsletters, or online.
2 Use word association. Pick a word (e.g. farm, president, chalk, hungry, daughter … etc.). It doesn’t matter what that word is. Write down as many words that relate to it. [13] For a fixed period of time. Set a timer for 5 to 15 minutes, then write down as many story ideas as you can think of before the timer sounds.
Challenge yourself to write down a large number of ideas, such as 50 to 100. Keep writing ideas down until you’ve met your goal. You can also challenge yourself to write this many ideas for a fixed period of time, provided you allow yourself a reasonable amount of time to do so. # Be sure to allow yourself enough time and put in enough effort to come up with a reasonable amount of possible ideas. In most brainstorming sessions, the majority of your ideas won’t be worth pursuing. Keep at it.
3 Build on a randomly chosen element. Take the name of a person or place from the newspaper, the phone book, or somewhere else and then imagine what he, she, or it would look like.
Build a backstory. For a person, this would include information about their line of work, friends, family, aspirations, and fears. For a place, you could discuss the area’s geography, local history, population, and wildlife. Add an element of conflict, a problem that happens or plagues the person in the place you’ve created. Build a story about what happens as a result. [14] Write backwards. You may know the outcome of a story. Now make a list of possible reasons why the character is so angry. Choose the most interesting possibilities and flesh them out, defining the event that triggered the rage and the prior events that led to it. Add more specifics to each step until you finally have the elements of a story.
4 Taking Strategic Breaks. Pretend you’re telling the story to someone else. Instead of trying to write the story right away, act as though you’re talking to somebody else, either by carrying on a conversation in your head or by talking into a recording device. Try to think of what questions another person might have about your idea or story. Transcribe the results of that conversation onto the page.
5 Think about your audience. For whom are you writing this piece? You will choose topics differently if you are writing for children vs adults, Americans vs Canadians, lowbrow vs highbrow people, or men vs women. Try to think about your audience’s preferences and then go from there.
6 Identify your purpose for writing. Are you trying to entertain? Are you trying to inform? You can build off that initial inspiration if you can identify why you are writing something.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.