Fictional Story Help?

Question

I really like to write stories, but it takes me a while to come up with a good idea. What is a good way for me to think more?

Answer 1

Get yourself a nice sturdy black and white marble notebook. Fill it with brainstorming. Take it with you everywhere. Just fill it with ideas - everything you can think of. When you have filled it, go through it and highlight some of the thoughts that you think might make good story ideas. Toss out any that aren't. Maybe you can even combine two or more ideas into one storyline. Then try writing some short stories with those ideas. Even if it is just fragments of stories. Sooner or later, something will lend itself to an idea for a longer work - a novel maybe. Good luck. Pax - C

Answer 2

Oh, boy. I get to answer this question again. These usually help people:

1. Look at a picture. A scene. It could be of a place, like in nature or buildings or something, or it could be of people or animals. Anything. Then ask yourself the Who What Where When and Whys. And maybe the Hows. Who is this person? Or if there isn't a person, who would come here? What is this place? Where? Ect.... You can't answer wrong. It's your story.

2. Start writing. Start with any sentence, like maybe "The hummingbird weaved around the leaves of the willow." Or if you don't like that, "She stepped into the house and the humming grew louder." Then ask yourself more questions, in order to write more. Who is she? What is this house? Is it a mansion? (You can change it to a mansion if you want, it's your story.) Why is she hear? And what is this humming? Be open minded. Remember that humming doesn't necessarily mean music kind of humming, it could be a machine, or an animal. If you don't know any animals that hum, maybe this is a fantasy world and there's this creature that hums. I don't know. It's your story.

*This may only give you a scene, not a plot, but after you write that scene, you could try forming a plot around what you've written. Or just keep writing and see what you come up with. It doesn't matter if what you write doesn't seem like a beginning of a story at all. A lot of authors write out of order. Just make sure that everything agrees with each other. For example, if your character didn't have parents in chapter 16 but he did in chapter 20, those chapters didn't agree with each other.

Just so you know, the picture works better if someone else picks it and shows it to you. Or maybe if you're walking around in like school or something and you happen to look up and there's a painting on the wall; ask yourself those questions again.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Ideas come to writers in many ways. I think that if you can understand on a deeper level the structure of stories and how they create meaning for the reader, then I think you can develop a story based on any premise.

I believe there are two things that you'll want to consider when thinking of an idea, in any order:

1) The Premise
2) The Setting

The Premise comes out of the question "what if". You have to constantly ask yourself this question. One place that you can ask this questions is even as you read stories or watch a book. Then your story can develop out of the response you create. Then continue to build that response and see how far you can take it then continue to ask more "what if?" questions.

The Setting

The setting is where your story is located. It isn't necessarily the physicality, because it can also mean the genre. As you ask yourself these "what if" questions, take your response and then place it in a setting. For example, put it in space, put it in the future, put it in the past (Star Wars, for example is set in space AND in the past), put it on earth in the West in the past and you've got a Western. Put it in a contemporary high school. The list goes on.

Develop either of these points and you will then be creating more clever story ideas than you have time to write.

Also, keep a notebook on you so that you can write down many of the responses that you create as you ask "what if".

Continue this dialogue:

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Answer 4

Look around at everyday life. If you see anything strange or funny, write about it. Try to write something small like this every day for practice until creativity comes more easily. Practice writing in different genres, especially ones you are unfamiliar with to broaden you mind and make it more flexible. Anything can be a good idea if you present it well. Good writers are also good readers. Become familiar with the language you wirte in and all its mechanics. Play around with words. Try looking online for writing prompts and try to write a short story in ten or twenty minutes. If you come across a person who looks grouchy or something weird happens in your life, write a story about it. Tell why that person was grouchy or why the bank teller was looking really cheery. Don't let yourself get stuck! Write something every day, even if it's a rant about writer's block. Broaden your vocabulary so the stories come alive and to avoid repetition of words. Shakespeare used lots of puns; experiment with that one day. There are lots of things to do!

Answer 5

As a rebuttle to everything those people said I would say that you can't always forc yourself to write when you're not ready. One way is to wait & wait; be more vigilant with anything that might inspire you for a week or two. Hope this helps!

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http://morethanimagination.blogspot.com

Answer 6

Sometimes it helps to free-associate. Just daydream or write in a notebook until you hit on an idea you like. And here's an article about breaking writer's block that might help. http://www.elfwood.com/farp/thewriting/writersblock/writersblock.html