Five Ways to Come Up with Story Ideas

     I love to write. But that's probably pretty obvious. I don't think of myself as a very gifted writer, or very good at the skill in general, but I do enjoy it and I have done it a lot. There are a million things I struggle with when it comes to writing, but I do not struggle coming up with story ideas. So I figured I'd tell you a few of my methods and maybe you can glean something.

     I can't remember a time where I have been short on story ideas. I always have a bunch of stories circulating in my head that I'll add to every once and a while. (My real problem is actually writing said story.) 

     Since I know a lot of people have trouble coming up with story ideas, I thought I would share some "wisdom" of my own. Here are five ways to come up with story ideas!

1. Read books

     This is probably one of the more obvious. You can learn things from other people's writing just by reading it. Reading books can spark creativity that would otherwise lay dormant. An important thing to note here is that you probably shouldn't only read one author or even one genre.

     It's okay if you like a specific genre and tend to gravitate towards books in that genre (I'm a huge fan of historical fiction and fantasy and that's exactly what I tend to do), but try branching out every once and a while. Sometimes you can "steal" a plot point from another genre and add it to your book, and that will make your book less cookie-cutter.

     For example, how about the relationship between African Americans and whites in the mid-1800s (or even the 50s and 60s for that matter). What if you tried to take that relationship into a fantasy book where there's a group of people (or animals even) who are mistreated and put in a place of subservience to others. If you add something where the prince's life is saved by one of the "outcasts," suddenly you have a bit of a plot!

     (I came up with that in approximately thirty seconds so please don't judge if it's really cheesy. XD)

2. Play a game

     Two games come to mind when I think about this idea... First, the game where one person in a group will start a story, and then you go around the circle adding sentences to the story. For example:

"Once upon a time there lived a princess with long golden hair."

"She was renowned for her beautiful singing and lived under a waterfall."

"People would flock from all over the desert and listen to her sing."

"Until one day a group of green aliens captured her."

     Bada-bing, bada-boom, there's an interesting story! (If a little absurd.) Even if you don't write the story word-for-word how it was in the game, you could still find interesting plot points or use an unexpected plot twist.

     A second game that pops into my head is one you can play on your own. Take two seemingly unrelated things and combine them using the phrase "what if." For example: What if centaurs really liked green cheese from the moon. I know that one's really weird, but you might come up with something! 

     Or try doing the reverse and take two things that seem to go together and combine them in a way where they don't. What if a superhero who could fly was afraid of heights. (I've heard that one somewhere - probably Pinterest - but it's a great example of what I'm trying to put across.)

3. Take an old story and re-tell it

     This has become more popular in recent years with several books and movies coming out about fairy tales and so on. Rapunzel and Frozen are two of the ones that I can think of that are based on fairy tales but have been changed to a point where it's a little hard to recognize them from the original. (Rapunzel's hair does kinda give that one away, I guess.)

     So take a big volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales and pick one to re-write. There are a lot of them. Or maybe even look at ancient Greek and Roman myths or traditional Native American stories. You could even take a story that's told in a song (old or modern) and write it down.

     The important thing to keep in mind with this is to add a twist. These types of books are no fun if the reader knows what's going to happen. Keep them on their toes! In Tangled, Rapunzel's hair has healing powers. That wasn't in the original. (Not actually 100% sure if it wasn't, but I know that Flynn Rider definitely wasn't in there. You get my point.)

4. Look at history

     This sorta goes along with the first tip of reading books, but read history. There are so many random facts and interesting stories about people that probably 99% of the world's population hasn't heard of. Take their life and write about it! That could be in the form of a biography, or embellish it/add details that aren't in the historical record and make it historical fiction!

     This also comes in handy for combining two ideas in the "what-if" game and things like the example I used with the African American-white relationship. You can learn all sorts of cool things about history. Check out my story ideas page for some ideas I've come up with from reading history. (Also see my Robin Hood story idea.)

5. Read interesting facts

     An example of this working out that I've been watching recently is the TV show Limitless. (I've been watching it using filters, so I'm not sure if I would recommend it without them, but it's good with filters!) The writers took the idea that we only use part of our brain (something that might not be actually scientifically founded, but whatever) and created a pill in their show that allowed the main character to access their entire brain. The result is pretty cool!

     Any little fact you read could be story fodder. Look up Snapple Facts. I saw one that said beavers can hold their breaths for 45 minutes underwater. That's a long time! Animals like that would be valuable soldiers in an animal fantasy where they need to put on a water siege or something like that. 

     Maybe beavers are very rare and there are stories of how they can devastate ships (I mean look at their teeth!) and a struggling nation discovers an abandoned beaver pup and keeps it's identity top secret, trains it to fight, and then uses it in an epic battle against a rival nation. Write it from the beaver's perspective. 

     Maybe he never got to go outside without guards, and suddenly he's on his own in the woods undertaking a top secret mission. Does he get caught? Does he freak out and run? Does he complete the mission but at a terrible cost? Run with the idea! Ask questions!

     Haha that example turned out a lot longer than I expected. XD That's it for today! I hope you found one (or a few) of these to be a little bit helpful if you struggle with story ideas. Thanks for reading!

~ Anna Iolene

Do you have trouble coming up with story ideas? Do you have any other tips that I missed? Let me know!