Where To Start: The Initial Idea

"Writers see the world differently. Every voice we hear, every face we see, every hand we touch could become story fabric." - Buffy Andrews

This post is for everyone out there who is struggling to find/come up with a story idea. Maybe you know you want to write, but you can't seem to find an idea to work with or an idea that resonates with you. Well, today I am here to help you all out. I have found 8 ways that I know of to come up with story ideas. Hopefully, this will help you out!

1. Finding Inspiration From Movies, TV-Shows, & Books

This is one of the ways I get most of my story ideas. I'll be sitting down and watching a movie or tv show, or reading another book and I get this spark of inspiration. Most of the time the inspiration comes from something I love and want to use myself. For example, one of my very first story ideas came from being inspired by one of my favorite book series The Selection Series by Kiera Cass. I loved the idea of writing a story similar where a low-life girl is forced to be at the Castle and end up falling for the Prince. Or another example that's more recent; the other night I was watching MacGyver (the 2016 version) with my brother and I was hit with more inspiration. I love the relationship dynamic between the two characters Riley and Jack. (Honestly, I love Jack as a character altogether, but that's beside the point) So I took out my phone and wrote down in my book ideas collection, I want to write a story someday where two characters have the same dynamic as Riley and Jack. This is one of my favorite ways to find inspiration for a new story idea, even if I'm not looking for an idea!

However, something I do need to address about this is that you need to make sure you're not straight-up plagiarizing other people's content. I don't think it's wrong to find inspiration from other content but you can't take all their ideas and play them off as your own. I believe you can find things you love in other content, such as character dynamics, a basic concept, a trope, etc., and use it as one of the many ingredients used to create your own unique story/book. Just keep this in mind when using this as a way to find story ideas.

2. Things You See, Experience, Or Imagine

This is another one of my favorites. So let's break this down.

Things you see: This basically means anything you see happening around you. For example, I was at one of my brother's high school baseball games, and at one point one of our runners was coming into home plate and the ball was thrown to the catcher of the other team and he full-on bulldozed our runner. It was not cool! Everyone was mad, there was yelling, and the coaches were arguing with the umps and the other coaches. It was bad. On the ride home, we were talking about it with my brother and he said one of the seniors almost went out there and share a piece of his mind with the catcher. (My respect for the senior went up several notches! But that's beside the point) This whole ordeal inspired me to write a scene like this in one of my books. Because currently, I have a series surrounding a bunch of baseball guys planned out and I thought this would be a great scene to add. So, really anything you see that is interesting or makes you think of your story, or makes you want to write a story surrounding that incident/event can be used as the basis of a story.

Things you experience: This is pretty self-explanatory, so I'll try to make this quick. Basically, this is anything that happens to you that you want to share with the world. Anything maybe you wish you would have known, anything you want others to know about, anything you want other people to avoid. Or even any story that will help you process your feelings and emotions over something that happened to you. A quick example of this is the main concept of my book My Country Roots, which is don't change yourself just so some guy will like you. This was something I had to learn and I want people to know this so they don't make the same mistake I did.

Things you imagine: Again, this is also pretty self-explanatory. Anything you imagine happening, whether to yourself or to the world, or people around you. Absolutely anything you imagine.

3. Places You Go

I'll start off with an example this time. Fall of 2021 my family and I went up to New York to visit our extended family. While there we went up to the Saint Lawrence Sea Way and rode a boat around the beautiful houses and islands. I was full of so many ideas during that boat ride. The houses and water were so gorgeous and I couldn't help but think about how I would love to tell a story about a girl and boy falling in love during a summer at this beautiful place. Any place you visit that you find inspiring can be used as the basis of a story idea!

4. People You Meet & See

This is similar to point number two where you get inspiration from anything you see it's just more specific to people. I love this way because it starts with the characters. Whether you use this to craft a character and craft the story around them or you're simply looking for some unique characteristics to add to an existing character of a story this is a great way to add to your writing.

5. Writing Prompts / Dialogue Prompts

These prompts can be absolutely anything. And they give some great inspiration. You can do two things with these prompts. 1. You can use them straight up as your idea and craft an entire story around the prompt. Or 2. You can use them for a specific scene or just to spark your imagination. Either way works. My favorite ones to use are dialogue prompts, which I use as inspiration for specific scenes in my writing. As an example I found a while ago that I used to inspire a scene in my work "I love you from the bottom of my heart, but I don't trust your cooking. Stay out of my kitchen." I highly recommend both of these prompts!

6. Pinterest & Other Social Media Sites

I say Pinterest first because that is the one I use the most. But, I definitely recommend looking at Pinterest and or other social media sites for writing content that will inspire you with story ideas. Pinterest is my personal favorite because they have all kinds of prompts, photos of people, photos of beautiful places, and really any other thing you can be inspired by. I also love Pinterest because you can create mood boards for your stories and characters.

A little self-promo here, but if you'd like to go and follow me on my Pinterest @AuthorKathrynHawke you can see some of my mood boards as well as my board for character inspiration and writing prompts. Definitely check it out!

7. Songs

I'm a very musical person in the sense I'm always listening to music. So, it's no surprise this is one way I get story ideas! You can be inspired by any song you listen to, to write a story that follows the idea the song was following. This one might be a little harder, but it's definitely fun.

8. Generators

This one I'm only briefly going to talk about because I don't use it very often if at all. But it is still a good resource. I think you can find these all over the internet but these websites basically generate story ideas, character names, character profiles for you, etc. So if this is something you'd find helpful definitely check them out!

So, that's all I've got for you! Hopefully, some of these will help any of you out there struggling to find story ideas. I would like to leave you with two things before I go, one is a thought and the other is a quote.

My thought: I truly believe that for a story to really last, it has to mean something to you, because if it doesn't you're less likely to be as dedicated to it. So, just keep that in mind, if you are struggling to stick with a project.

And the quote: "I think new writers are too worried that it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you." - Asha Dornfest.

Please let me know in the comments how you get your story ideas! I'd love to know.

And as always, if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments or contact me.

Have a blessed day!

With Love, Kathryn Hawke