Help find the cure

Coming Up With Story Ideas

by Rick Walton

Contents

• Start With a Character
• Start With a Quest or Problem
• Start With a Thing
• Start With a Phrase
• Start With a Scene
• Start With a Theme
• Start With a Title
• Take Advantage of Luck
• Start With Another Author
• Start With a Plot

Start With a Character

Characters' Minds

Major characters have inner lives that are the catalysts for what goes on in their outer lives. Pick a character, and have that character do one of the following. Then see where it goes.

For more ideas, go to 651 Things Kids Do.

Character's Characteristics

Any interesting character has at least one unique, identifying characteristic. This characteristic might trigger the conflict and the action of the story. Sometimes simply picturing a character with an interesting characteristic will trigger an idea you can work with. (1013 Characteristics)

Back to Top

Start With a Quest or Problem

Characters' Wants

Choose a character. Give them something they really want. Follow where that goes.

Give a character an issue they have to deal with.

For more ideas, go to 470 Issues in Kids' Lives.

Classified Ads

A frequent type of conflict is one where someone needs something. Classified ads are mini-stories telling what someone needs. Such ads might suggest a story about a person who has the need or the person who answers the need. When browsing your newspaper, keep your eye out for interesting ads.

Advice Columnists

People write into advice columnists because they have problems and want solutions. Take a problem described in such a column and imagine where it could go.

Back to Top

Start With a Thing

Nouns

Nouns can suggest a character, frequently personified, or an item that the character has to deal with in some way. If the noun has some sort of characteristic of it's own, you might find that characteristic in the list of characteristics found earlier.

Back to Top

Start With a Phrase

Repeated Catch-Phrase

Remember the following catch phrases?

Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man.

Not I, said the duck.

I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.

A number of children's stories are centered around a unique catch phrase. Sometimes coming up with a catch phrase can trigger a story.

First Lines

Sometimes the hardest part of writing is getting started. The first line of another's work can be adapted into something you could use for your own story.

Back to Top

Start With a Scene

Pictures

Find a photograph or painting that intrigues you. Start asking questions about the scene. How did the situation in the scene come to be? Where could the situation go from here? What else might have happened in that scene?

To find a setting you could imagine, go to 431 Locations.

Back to Top

Start With a Theme

Quotes

Quotes can trigger ideas in a number of ways:

1. They can be used as an introduction to a story that illustrate the quote in some way.
2. They can be used as unwritten morals of a story.
3. They can suggest a character or a conflict.

Back to Top

Start With a Title

Movie, Book and Tabloid Story Titles

A good title will suggest a story. There are plenty of good titles that already exist. If they suggest a story, just make sure that the story they suggest to you isn't the same one that the original author wrote.

Write the story the title suggests, then change the title, if you want.

Tabloid magazines are particularly good if you're looking for an unusual story.

Back to Top

Take Advantage of Luck

Serendipity

When it hits you, follow it.

Interesting Reading

Any good piece of writing by another can trigger many ideas for books of your own.

The Wandering Mind

Just before you drop off to sleep, your mind releases control of itself and begins to make unusual connections. Sometimes these connections will trigger ideas for great stories. Good ideas can also be triggered when you are daydreaming while walking, while looking at the sky, or while sitting in church. If your mind wanderings aren't very interesting, consciously start them off on an interesting path, and see where they go.

Random Characters, Conflicts, Locations

Almost every story involves one or more characters, a conflict, and a location. If you have characters with a conflict, and have them in a unique location, plot will usually follow.

Back to Top

Start With Another Author

Another Author's Kernel

The same kernels are frequently used to trigger different stories. You might find someone else's kernel and be able to use it to trigger a totally unique story of your own.

Another Author's Style

Start typing in a story you like. When inspiration grabs you, take off on your own story. When you're done, delete the part of the story that isn't yours.

Back to Top

Start With a Plot

Your Life

Everyone has dozens of things in their life that would make good triggers for stories. Make a list of things that happened in your childhood, interesting characters you knew, fears and problems you had as a child, anything that might serve as the basis for a children's story.

Anecdotes

Many story ideas are triggered by experiences in the author's life. Stories from others' lives can also trigger ideas. Anecdotes are a good source of others' unique experiences. Some anecdotes can be adapted as is into a story. Other anecdotes will simply have the seed that will develop into your own unique story. There are many collections of anecdotes that are worth looking through for story ideas.

Other Book Plots

The general plot idea of another book might lead you to a plot idea of your own. For plot ideas, see 500 picture book summaries.

Fairy Tale, Fable, or Legend

Fairy tales, fables and legends are ready-made stories that are well-suited to adaptation. Following are some approaches that can be used to adapting such tales:

1. The further adventures of a character from the story.
2. The story told from a different point a view.
3. A parody of the story.
4. Change the ending.
5. Change the location.
6. Change the characters.
7. Change the conflict.
8. Rewrite the story in a different style.
9. Most fairy tales have a lesson. Imagine the situation that led to the first person telling the fairy tale. Write a story about that situation.