Mindful Content: Generating Story Ideas

By Marcus Coates, @homeinriyadh, 10th June 2021

Unsplash: Dstudio Bcn

Blog No. 19

Generating Story Ideas

Where do story ideas come from? Well, I’d say story ideas are all around us, and our lives are filled with them. However, the problem is that we mostly ignore the ideas, as we’re too busy doing chores and dealing with household and family stuff: our minds are too busy to capture them. So, if you want to find an exciting story idea to expand into a novel, I’d suggest the following three techniques:

• Keep a notebook of ideas

• Set specific time aside each day for thinking

• Try completing my story generator template

Keeping a notebook

Unsplash: Aaron Burded

Ideas - like dreams – are often fleeting; they hang around the periphery of our subconscious for a while and then drift off to find someone more receptive to their presence. Capture them and write them down as they occur, then come back later and expand or disregard them. If you don’t, you might miss out on a genuinely great idea. Ask yourself this: How often have you had a great story, business or invention idea, dismissed the thought, and then found out a month or year or so later that someone else has made your idea into something special, beneficial and profitable? It happens all the time, right?

To combat this, I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping a little notebook on me. I use it for all kinds of things: shopping lists, tasks I need to perform, reminders to self and for jotting down story ideas or poem fragments as they come to me. Once I got into the habit of carrying this little pocketbook around with me, I’ve found it indispensable. And it has since become the starting point to many of my projects and writing pieces.

Thinking Time

First up, by dedicating specific time to think about story ideas, you’ll put yourself in the writing zone. Give it a name – ‘this is my thinking about stories time’ – and make it a scheduled event in the day. If you find it hard to schedule time, set the alarm on your phone and say to yourself, I’ll dedicate this time to generating ideas until the alarm goes off. And if you like to ‘think and do’ – why not go for a walk, go to the gym or cook a meal and think? That way, you’ll be fit, fed and full of ideas all in one go!

Here are a few areas of inspiration to draw from:

1. Personal life experiences

2. A person you know with an unusual life

3. A news story or news headline

4. Natural progression scenarios of climate change or overpopulation

5. A historical event of interest

6. Adapt a fairy tale, myth, legend or fable

7. Deconstruct a favourite book and rewrite it in a different style

8. Random Google search

How about taking one of the above categories during your scheduled thinking time and ask ‘What if …?’ type questions and see if any idea emerges to flesh out into something interesting.

Unsplash: Mika Baumeister

1. Personal life experiences

We all have unique lives, personal experiences, and chance encounters that other people would find interesting if they only knew about: why not take an exciting event in your life and fictionalise it? Another interesting method is to think of an alternate life you could have lived: What if I’d taken up that job offer? What if I’d travelled abroad? What if I’d been badly injured during that reckless challenge? What if someone had died during that car accident? What if I’d had that love affair?

2. A person you know with an unusual life

There are so many fascinating people out there with interesting lifestyles or unusual jobs. Why not take one - or some of them - and turn them into characters in your novel? Think of two strong personalities you know that don’t know each other and ask, ‘What if X and Y fell in love or came into conflict or got involved in criminal activities?’

3. A news story or news headline

The news is full of tragedies, catastrophes, and moments of rare human endeavour and sacrifice. Why not take one of the events and fictionalise it? Or ask the alternate ‘What if …?’ question.

4. The natural progression of climate change or overpopulation

Mother Nature can’t be tamed, and our footprint on this planet has daily adverse effects; these scenarios lend themselves to ‘What if …?’ questions. What if the earth continues to become hotter year on year? What if the temperature reaches a point that humans can’t go out during the day? What if the heat destroys all foliage? What if our resources are no longer enough?

5. Historical event

In fiction writing, you don’t have to be historically correct; so why not take a historical event you’re interested in and drop yourself into the action as an observer? What if you altered the historical event and gave it a different outcome? What would the world look like now?

6. Adapt a fairy tale, myth, legend or fable

Fairy tales, myths, legends and fables are stories that have stood the test of time and have been handed down from generation to generation. They already have great structure to them and already have qualities that appeal to countless audiences. Ask the ‘What if …?’ question: What if I take a popular myth and place the story in a different time zone and with my characters?

7. Deconstruct a favourite book and rewrite it in a different style

Have you ever read a book and wondered why you found it so gripping and entertaining? Have you ever asked yourself why the novel touched your emotional core? Why not use your scheduled thinking time to deconstruct the story and analyse how the author built the story?

Alternatively, have you ever read a book and been less than impressed and decided ‘I can do a better job than that!’ That’s because you’re familiar with the conventions the writer used, or you felt the language was hackneyed and clichéd. Ask the question: What if I wrote my version of this novel, with crisper dialogue, sharper action, fraught with intrigue, and containing troubled characters with greater depth?

8. Random Google search

Another excellent starting point for generating story ideas is Professor Google. Not only can you put a keyword search in for ‘fluffy kittens’ and ‘folks falling off things’ and watch hours of short and mildly amusing video clips, but you can also use the search engine to generate story ideas. Why not try searching for topics you’re interested in, such as: ‘unusual murders’, ‘heartbreak and betrayal’, ‘alien romance’, ‘unsolved crimes’, ‘life in other galaxies’ – you’ll come across hours of entertaining stories – and one of those could be the kernel to a great novel.

Unsplash: CJ Dayrit

Story Generator Template

Using the story generator template below, why not schedule some thinking time and ask yourself a ‘what if …?’ question for each of the categories you never know - it might just provide you with that great moment of inspiration!

Template 1: Story Generator Template

If you would like a downloadable and editable story generator template, visit my website www.mc-mindful-content.com and download the Word doc.

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