Never Let Your Story Ideas Escape (Part 1)

A robust system to record, develop and plan helps fiction writers

It can be frustrating when you have a magical seed of an idea which fails to blossom into a wonderous story; instead, it languishes in the basement of your mind, fighting to reach the sunlight of the world outside.

“I’ve got a great idea for a novel,” you say. “I’ll write it someday…”

This isn’t a post about productivity or avoiding procrastination. Yes, the lack of belief can lead to writer’s block, but essentially, I’m here to offer you a few paths to generating and nurturing sound story ideas and to help you get them down onto the page. This first article covers idea generation.

Where do story ideas come from?

I’m a writer of both non-fiction ‘content’ and short stories. Recently I’ve been noticing the difference between the ideation process for these two distinct forms of writing.

Article ideas usually come from research or reframing an already popular topic. As writers, we should be certain there is a need and a market for our articles. Stories, on the other hand, are not so simple.

Creative ideas mostly come from experience, internal desires, seemingly random prompts or the mixing of predetermined elements. Truly creative thinking comes from our subconscious, which can be tricky to access. It requires techniques of limitation rather than expansion.

I’ve written over 200 pieces of short fiction, many of which have been published in magazines, anthologies or in my own collections. Here’s where I’ve gained most of my ideas.

Experiences

Our lived experience forms the substance of most of our stories. It’s not always where ideas spring from, but I think you’ll agree that there are moments in our writing lives where we virtually run to find a pen to make a note for later.

All of these experiences may contribute to our stories at some point:

An interesting character you met
A secret conversation you overheard
An inspiring setting — a new city, a creepy forest, a placid lake
A journey you took — physically or spiritually
An object you saw that seems lost or out of place (e.g. a single shoe in the road)— who owned it? What’s its story?
A strange dream you had

Want a few story ideas right now? Make a few notes on your experiences with these prompts.

Desires

Sometimes, as writers, we want to try out something new. As a fan of country music, I had always wanted to write a story about a singer in Nashville. That was literally the starting point for one of my short stories.

But it’s not just topics. The desire to write certain stories can manifest through themes (e.g. revenge), events (e.g. a daring robbery) or a ‘what if’ situation.

‘What if humans could breathe underwater?’

‘What if Oprah Winfrey travelled back in time to interview Cleopatra?’

The opportunities are limitless.

About Me — Philip Charter

Author & writing coach | podcast host | crisp enthusiast

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Prompts:

To really activate the subconscious, it’s necessary to write from prompts. This is especially useful for flash fiction, in which readers are more willing to accept drastic or baffling situations and process their meaning later. This could be a writing session of five minutes or a longer session where you try a series of prompts. After this, you’ll be left with a line, an interesting image or even a workable idea for a story.

Select a list of prompt words from a book (e.g. the first two nouns on page 57 and the first three verbs on page 200).
Generate a list of ten random words and include one of them each 1 minute of writing.
Begin the next sentence with part of the last. e.g. We went to the station at 10 AM. We went to the station because Jenny would arrive with the kids. The kids were on holiday from a school they hated. They hated school because…
Create an idea in a form not associated with stories (a ‘hermit crab’ fiction). Examples include a shopping list, a recipe, a postcard, a to-do list, or a computer command prompt.
Generate an idea based on the backstory to an image. This can be from a stock photo website, an album cover, or a famous work of art.
Pick a headline from a magazine or newspaper. Work backwards to uncover a new truth.
Use Story Dice to create a fully-formed simple story to flesh out later.

Lists:

One of my favourite methods for short-fiction idea generation is lists. Write lists of people or characters you know, their unattractive qualities, the colours or animals you associate them with, places they have always wanted to go (or places they are terrified of). What are their greatest achievements and their biggest fears?

Matching two separate lists is a perfect way to activate the subconscious mind and create a novel and exciting idea. You can decide how much you’d like to shape the idea, or if you’d prefer to leave it open so the reader is more responsible for shaping the meaning.

So, there are a few methods to find where story ideas lurk.

Of course, once you have an idea ‘seed’, you have to look after it. Write it down and keep a well-organised file for your ideas. Revisit the list to see which ideas excite you, and most importantly, make a note of when you plan to take action and start growing your story.

I’ll write more about how to develop and plan stories from idea to first draft in Part 2 of this series.

Fiction writers — Where do your story ideas come from? I’d love for you to comment and tell me.

(I’ve included the link to a story I wrote after working with a prompt on a mythology course. The story had to be set in the ‘liminal’ space — a character crossing a threshold to make an important discovery.)

One Hundred and Thirty-Five Seconds

Diving to the ocean floor, holding your breath… until you can’t