Where do story ideas come from?

Ask a group of fiction writers where they get their ideas for stories and you’ll likely hear about snippets of their day, a childhood memory or a comment they overheard that just stuck with them. So how do these bits and pieces become 5,000 or 50,000 words or more?

Take any event that happened in your day. What? You don’t think anything interesting happened? Everyone has something in their daily life that can be expanded, stretched and skewed into an interesting story. Did you get out of bed today and take some form of transportation to work? Was there a missed train? A near accident in the car? A curb you might have tripped over? Play “what if” with any little incident and imagine big. It may be easier to make yourself into a character that you can “observe”.

Here’s Jim – every day Jim gets up and dresses for work. His wife Peggy makes him coffee in a travel mug which she hands to him as he kisses her and walks out the door. Every day he drives 2.3-miles to work at the bank as a teller, on the way he passes a school building, crosses train tracks, and waves to the minister at the local church. Boring. Or not.

Let’s play “what if”. Today Peggy is annoyed at Jim for some infraction so she neither makes him coffee nor does she receive his kiss as he leaves. He’s disgruntled and distracted on his way to work. He is overly impatient waiting for the school buses to discharge the children and hurries once he can get by. In his hurry he fails to see the train coming down the track.

Now you play what if? Does Jim make it across the tracks? Or does he die when the train hits his car? Maybe he lives but is severely injured and this can become a story of love (as his wife stays by his side), determination and triumph. Or he dies leaving his wife devastated and his employer in the lurch? Maybe someone had previously contacted Jim for an “inside job” at the bank and now that person thinks Peggy knows of the plan? This can become a great crime and mystery novel.

Take a story that’s already been told and have fun playing with the circumstances. Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water – only this time Jack didn’t feel like going up the hill and Jill was alone and defenseless when she ran into a vicious grizzly bear. How does this change Jack? Maybe he feels guilty and lives a solitary life trying to make it up to Jill’s family? Maybe he realizes he would never love someone as greatly as he loved Jill. You can build a story about Jack and the life he leads due to guilt and regrets.

Watch a TV show and change the circumstances for a different ending. Take a random comment you overheard from a stranger and build a story around it. Imagine a different outcome because that thing you “should have said” was said. As a fiction writer the world is malleable in your hands.


Writing exercise: Think of a television series that you watched fairly regularly that has ended its run. Imagine that you can give that TV show one more season. Jot down a few ideas for coming episodes. Are there any changes you would make to the final episode that did run in order to continue the story line?

Writing prompt: Write a complete sentence or two beginning with the words: 1) The last time I was in jail, I… 2) He wouldn’t have believed me anyway so… 3) I was frightened out of my wits when she said… 4) The devil made me do it and… 5) I always _______, but today I…