7 Ways to Find Ideas for Your Stories.
Ideas are cheap, you as author make them worth something!
Pheeew… Now, when we settle this, let’s talk about how to find, generate, and come up with ideas. Because even if you are the best writer on earth, that makes from the worst ideas bestsellers. If you don’t have an idea, there is nothing to write about.
Prepare to dive into the rabbit hole!
Surrounding World and Events.
The surrounding universe is such a horrendously nice place, full of events.
The thick mist outside covering the entire city. Unimaginable moments of human goodness and courage, that is hard to believe. Horrifying pandemic that forces people to stay at home and remember that spear is a fine tool to keep people away from you!
All of that can be a source of inspiration for a delightful fairy tale or a good old-fashioned horror, with blood and gore!
The world around you is a significant source of ideas by itself.
All you need to use, for finding ideas from the surroundings, is notice things. Be aware of the world around you and eventually you will stumble on a story idea.
You may also not only observe but take part. Go hike, took a ride somewhere, do something wild, or even hangout with people, more about that later. Just don’t forget to notice things and write them down on the back of your mind.
If you hardcore stay at home person like me and lockdown for you is more like a vacation, that method probably not for you. But anyway, you have a window and that squirrel on the tree outside can throw at you several of the hints about what to write about. So, observe!
Conversations with people.
You can not only look at the surrounding world but also interact with people who inhabit it. I know that sounds bizarre…hah…talking with humans?! Am I crazy?!
Yet, talking with people can be a great source of ideas. But be sure to have a mask and spear with you while trying to have human interactions. Or use remote ways to contact them. It’s surprisingly more reliable than a spear… it’s kinda disappointing, by the way.
Idea of talking with people is reasonable, but how to squeeze those insights from your friends, colleagues, and casual strangers that talk with you at the park.
Well, try to stop pretending that you pay attention and actually do it? It’s a joke. We all know that we pay attention for each single word, yes?
Okay, now serious. Really, pay attention. Not only for what people say, but for the context in which they say it. How exactly they said it. I mean gesturing and emotions. It’s kinda even more important than actual words.
By listening to what people talk about, a muse can randomly hit you and you will run away to write down words given by inspiration.
Little off top advice.
By paying attention to context, you will learn in which circumstances people talk about certain topics. It would help pick the right time for the right dialogue in your story.
By paying attention to gesturing, tone of voice, and sentence structure, you will learn how people communicate. It would help to write dialogue and make them feel alive.
End of the off top.
“People are nice fellows. One moment they spoke with you sweetly, second after they yell at you and try to perform stubby-stubby action with something pointy, cause you told something they deeply disagree with. Marvelous beings!” — Me.
When either how much you like or dislike talking with people, you can’t ignore that source.
Have conversations with people as much as you can do it.
After all, talking with people can be fun, sometimes.
Use existing knowledge.
Knowledge is a power. Not utilizing knowledge is a crime against your creativity!
Knowing as many things as possible is not only interesting but also beneficial for coming up with new things.
Imagine a new idea as an empty box. Right now there is nothing there. Now imagine a cloud of threads above you, with a label on each thread. Labels represent your knowledge. Took one of those labels, pulled it. Good, now put it in the box. Then another one, and another, and one more. Now close the box, shake it up, and open. My congratulations, you have an idea!
That process can happen in the back of your mind. Random facts just mix up like in a petri dish and then hit you hard. It’s one of the laziest ways to gain ideas, just do nothing and gave new materials. But that is rather unreliable. How many of a time do you have to wait while doing nothing?
You can take your existing knowledge and apply it to your story consciously. We can use even basic knowledge of physics. Add to those laws some magic to manipulate it in some fun way, and you have a whole new idea to use in your story. You can even wrap the entire story around some physical anomalies caused by some artifact.
Just use your existing knowledge of things.
“An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements,” James Webb Young
Glimpse of understanding about as many topics as possible can fuel your creativity.
Use not only existing knowledge of things but expand it. Learn new topics that you are interested in but “didn’t have time on it”. Now you have justification to find time to learn.
So go and read that encyclopedia you bought 3 years ago and never lay a finger on it! Devour the knowledge! Create stories with it!
Historical Events.
Ah, the history. The epic saga of humanity.
From the ancient time and first great inventions that pushed us forward.
To the medieval era and third crusade that ended up with pillaging Constantinople, great job Venice, how neat of you.
And continuing with the modern era where we conquered the power of the atom and almost blew ourselves away with it.
History is so fun! Also, it’s an excellent source of inspiration and fiction ideas.
You can take ideas from every single setting, excluding the future, for obvious reasons.
Weapon, interesting characters, places, events, you name it. All of that can be adopted in your story with some alterations for it.
For example the famous legendary, mentioned everywhere (cause we have a lot of historical sources) Battle of Agincourt. Or how I called it, a practical guide on how to beat a lot of French knights by using cheap peasants with bows.
Use it as a model for your big battle in the fantasy novel. Slap elves as a defending side, well, you know, because of bows. Add some epic heroes that could kill dozens of enemies in one big swoop. Throw dragons into it, how without them?!
Voila, you have a battle of Agincourt 2.0 Fantasy edition.
It can work like that with any given historical event. Look how bloodily happy a red wedding was at Song of Ice and Fire. A real event inspired it, and it worked well!
Quote. “Sometime history keeps some weird and disturbing stuff out there ”
Humans throughout their history did some…weird stuff. It can be great, no, GREAT source of inspiration.
So curse yourself that you slacked on history lessons and get to learning, I guess? Or screw this and don’t even bother with history. Ha, what can it even teach you about, yes?!
Inspiration from other stories
Stories exist to take us away from this world problems, to expose us to certain feelings, inspire us.
So why not use that inspiration from your favorite stories, to write your own one?
Remember your favorite story. What was it about?
Okay and now think, what if Frodo became the true owner of the ring? Or Nazgul will take away a ring at the very beginning of the story, when four hobbits were hiding under the road?
How different the story of Middle Earth could be?
Took the story tropes of some of your favorite Novels or TV shows or anything that tells a story and thinks what if…
What if. It’s enough to wonder, to think. By wondering about what I could do differently, is enough to give you an idea or a bunch of ideas (usually the second one) for your story.
Of course, a few tiny things left to do with that approach. Create unique characters, an entirely new setting and new plot that use a new view point at the plot. Just a little of simple work… hah. Actually not, but you can do it!
Stories that we read throughout our lives can lead to other stories if you look on a certain angel. So read cautiously and ask a question “what if?”
YouTube videos about everything.
Did you ever have an idea for the story, while watching your favorite youtuber talking about anything?
No, serious. Watching your beloved science, or writer, or gaming, or whatever channel can pop ideas in your mind.
Cool Image Do nothing image.
That approach is especially useful in the early stages of gaining ideas for your story. You either have nothing in your head and do nothing, while burning your hours of life by watching stuff on YouTube, or you hit the wall and do the same as in the first case.
But that state of empty head kinda works well with that media. Your mind will work like a cauldron where new knowledge and random not so useful stuff are threw. Remember the “Existing Knowledge” part of that blog? Same process, but with new stuff.
You also can aim more precisely and watch thematic videos to help your mind be more specific about what is cooking out there.
Overall, that approach is perfect, when you have free time and feel like you don’t want to do anything. Click on video and relax. Then run to the notebook cause halfway through the video something would click in your head… maybe.
Author note. That approach applies for almost any piece of video media.
Now we all officially have an excuse for not doing stuff while watching YouTube.
So go and procra… em, generate ideas.
.
Thinking about topics outside of the box.
What if orcs could fly? Dragons did not like gold? And Elves were not such douchebags at any given story or moment?
No, really. What if?
Author note. It’s kinda different “what if” the part of the blog with other stories’ inspiration. You took the general theme or topic without foundation of any story.
Thinking outside of the box about anything is ridiculously fun!
For example, fantasy rearmed video series by Shadiversity channel. Which weapon fantasy creatures can use . Or how some fantasy concepts should work if they were actually thought through.
Thinking about those kinds of topics is a super cool way to pass time and also gain work material for your masterpiece.
Best part is that you need to be curious, that’s all.
Took any topic from the genre you write in. Think how certain elements can play out with different approach differently or…*gasp*… in a logical way!
Put your-self on the place of the race, characters or whatever that exists in your story. How they think. What materials they have and can work with. Their world views.
Think how you can exploit the laws of physics with unique materials that exist in your setting. Different applications for tools you create, because they have over ONE application.
All of it would create a chain reaction of creativity.
Think of anything you want, but just try to do it. It’s super fun!
Conclusion
Well, what can I say in conclusion?
That’s probably all the ways of gaining ideas that I can think of right now, besides the old fashioned brainstorm. But that thing is straightforward and boring to write about.
So, thanks for reading and until next time!
