《How to Write Stories People Will Love》3. Find Inspiration
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If you're ever stumped for ideas on what to write, there are two things I recommend.
A story that I recently finished was inspired by a random thought I had while walking the dogs. They were sniffing intently at a bush, and I thought to myself, "I wonder what it's like to smell things as well as they do?" My brain then followed that rabbit down a hole and a story began forming. (Incidentally, this story is now on Wattpad! Look for My Mother Runs With Wolves on my profile. Website users can click on the External Link.)
Encourage your brain to think random thoughts. In any direction.
What would it be like to live on the moon? How high could you jump?
Do alligators really survive in the sewer? What do they live on?
How much time did Richard Adams spend staring at rabbits when he wrote Watership Down? Did his friends think he was crazy?
If teleporters ever get invented, I wonder if it'll get sabotaged by the airline and automobile industries?
Encouraging your mind to wander to pointless places sometimes sparks an idea for a story. My brain is always doing this on its own (I occasionally document these random thoughts in "My Hamster Wheel Brain" blog) and I'm often accused of spacing out. Some of these random thoughts give me ideas, and I'll scribble these ideas into a file for later reference.
Wandering thoughts usually aren't enough to come up with a story plot. The way you flesh out an idea is by asking what ifs. I'll take my previous wandering examples and apply what ifs to them...
What if they started colonizing the moon, and I volunteered? Would any of my friends and family go with me? What if I was in a relationship? What would happen to that?
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What if these sewer alligators were actually robots created by a corporation to build something secret underground?
What if Richard Adams made his story about cats instead of rabbits? What might have changed?
What if teleporters do get invented, but big-money lobbies get laws to be passed that make them illegal? What if a small group of scientists keeps working on one anyway, what would they do with it? Would a black market teleportation industry spring up?
Now these wandering thoughts have more meat on them, more potential to turn into stories.
If your brain doesn't wander like mine does, there are other ways. The What If Game can be powerful. Take an existing fairy tale. Then what-if the heck out of it. Here's an example: Peter Pan.
What if Peter Pan was actually a girl? She could be Petra Pan. With Lost Girls instead of Lost Boys.
What if this was set in space? Maybe Peter Pan used a jet pack instead of fairy dust. Would Tinkerbell be an alien?
What if Captain Hook was Peter's father?
What if Peter Pan was like Mad Max, and the Lost Boys ran Thunderdome?
What if Peter somehow got old? (This has already been done, in that Robin Williams movie, Hook.)
What if Tinkerbell was big and ugly like a troll, instead of tiny, fluttery and cute?
As you can see, there are countless directions you can go in! Some of them may have been done already, but there are so many possibilities, that chances are good you'll find something original.
Maintain a file or notebook for all your ideas. No matter how dumb or tiny the idea might seem, write it down. You don't have to flesh it out. Just record what you have. Twice now, I've thought of nothing but a title. No clue what the plot was, or who the characters might be. Just a story title I thought was cool. I wrote them down and set it aside for several months.
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Then later, as I recorded other ideas, I would peruse my previous ideas just for fun. Often these previous ideas will stir something in my creative space, and something will take root. Months later, I now have a complete short story, called "Sell Fish", and an in-progress novel from those two disembodied story titles I once wrote down.
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Arnar the Dungeon
Arnar is a dungeon core. Everybody knows dungeons are evil, man-eating entities hell-bent on killing and absorbing whatever wanders inside their depths. The problem is no one ever told him that. Well, the truth is no one ever told him anything and he refused powers-that-be when they tried to make him into the proper dungeon. That should teach them not resurrect people into dungeon cores. Now it is too late. He has a perfect plan to become the best dungeon on the continent and nothing will stand in his way. Especially something called common sense. Disclaimer of sorts: I am non-native English writer that used to write mostly for himself. After my last computer decided to die on me taking all my works with it I lost the desire to write for quite a long time. This is my attempt to go find motivation to write again as this was my favourite hobby. The idea is to be held accountable. As for being non-native, I don't believe that should be a major issue as I feel my proficiency in English to be sufficient enough to not be too much of the distraction. That said, be forewarned that the rules governing punctuation are beyond my grasp. All I can do is try not to completely suck at that. As mentioned this is an attempt to motivate me to write again so any message, encouragement or constructive criticism will go long way. The cover was created with the help of http://fantasynamegenerators.com/emblem-creator.php I hope you will enjoy my story.
8 149 - In Serial37 Chapters
[Discontinued] Armus : First Draft
THIS FICTION HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED. I don't recommend reading this, since the chapters are a bit haphazard (containing new edits which don't really fit in with the latter half of the story).
8 179 - In Serial18 Chapters
Final Realms - New World
Earth wasn't the same as the way it was when the Creator of Life decided to bring forth a new cycle of life, cease gods, humans, and demons from its existence. Thus, a NEW WORLD arises after gods and demons have merged into human reality. Twenty years after the catastrophe, neo-human was born. A superhuman who rivaled a godly strength and acclaimed themselves as the only surviving species in this rebooted world. The daughter of both gods and demons, Cynthia was born simultaneously. Her parents left her in this newborn society among with minority of other gods who seclude themselves from neo-human sight. Her power prevailed when her age turned eighteen. A power that could seize everything under her grasp as her ability was destined to become the crowned head of neo-humans and demons.
8 210 - In Serial27 Chapters
Journey into My New Life
I was once a college student who minded his own business. That's not to say I am a coward but I just didn't involve myself with events outside of my scope of existence. That all changed when the Fire Nation attacked... Just kidding. But in all seriousness due to several unfortunate events I died and went to heaven or whatever. I was given a mission and sent on my way to my next life. I suppose you could call it rebirth but the world I was reborn in is very different than Earth. There are many races and many new things including MAGIC! Unfortunately, there is little to no technology or science never underestimate the stupidity of a people who can just wave their hand and make fire. "How does it work?"" "It just works?"" ""What happens if you give it extra oxygen?"" "What is 'oxygen' is it tasty?"AN: Hey, this is my first official novel/fiction. I plan to separate it into several books and I have it all planned out I just have to write the actual story. I'll try to post at least once a week after I upload the first 30,000 words.Although this has a Mature tag it's only slightly mature. I don't go over the top with gore there may however be sexual scenes in later chapters.Parts of this are similar to mushoku tensei but the story later diverges from the canon.
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Meet John Doe.A 20 year old college student.Tall, well kept hair, dirty blonde, green eyes.Descent student.Average, middle-class family.Physically Active, involved in various activities.Enjoys pasta and games.Dislikes crowds and most seafood.Preps for the apocalypse as a hobby.Preps for what he calls the "3 probable ends":The world runs out of oilLarge solar flare hits the planetEconomic collapse due to some reasonDownloaded and compiled tons of survival resources.All information is compressed and rewritten into a 400 page book.The apocalypse came, and it was something that he never imagined.His resources were still useful though.However, he died in his sleep the night before and the survivors didn't bother to check why. They did not last long.
8 168 - In Serial33 Chapters
A Deal with the Daredevil (Completed) (Editing)
Casey Stratford and Ryder Cavanaugh are not friends. They're barely even acquaintances. But when Casey gets dumped and she's resigned herself to do everything in her power to get her ex back, even becoming an overnight daredevil, there's only one person who can help. Ryder Cavanaugh. Ryder Cavanaugh is spontaneous, reckless and irresponsible; he's everything she's not, but wants to be. So they make a deal. A deal that maybe, just maybe, has a chance of turning Casey into the town's newest daredevil. Or maybe, it'll just come back and bite her in the ass.Cover made by: @BeyondCreative
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