In Today’s Journal
* Some Ways to Get Story Ideas
* Six Days Left on the Easter Sale
* About Your Morning Serial
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Some Ways to Get Story Ideas
A writer friend (Thanks, BJ) emailed me to ask about where to get story ideas when you want to write but you’re stuck for an idea.
First, if you’re ‘stuck’ when you ‘want to write,’ you’re probably making the story too important. This might easily happen when you have limited time to write, so you feel pressured to write while you can.
The answer to that is to write the first few words—literally just put ANY words on the page, whatever they are—then keep writing wherever the story takes you. (I go through this with almost every novel I start a day or two after I finish one.)
Also, trust yourself and trust the process. You know an idea will come. Sometimes you just have to wait it out and keep doing whatever you’re doing.
But BJ mentioned that I’ve said I sometimes get story ideas from photos. And that Dean Wesley Smith often crashes half-titles together from a list he’s compiled over the years. BJ also said he usually writes from situations he sees around him.
All of those are great ways to generate story ideas or story starters. So here’s my response to my writer friend:
For Photos
Set up a free account at Unsplash (or some other free and royalty free stock photo provider). You can download as many photos as you like. Put them into a folder, and when you need to, browse them.
Maybe you’ll see a mother elephant with her child, or a giraffe walking across a grassland, or a person with a deadly (or sweet) look in his or her eyes, etc. Then write whatever comes.
I have a folder filled with possible POV characters for my Blackwell Ops novels. Almost every story begins with me browsing those photos. When I look at a photo and a name, personality, and skill set appear, and I write whatever comes. From there on out, I can only barely wait to get back to the story the next morning to see what happens next.
For Dean’s Half-Title Method
Dean finds titles of other people’s stories, usually from magazines. He copies half the title in one column, then half the title in another, then picks two at random and smashes them together to create a new title. Then he writes whatever comes.
If anyone’s interested, I’ll send you a list of half-titles I started back in 2018 to start you off. Email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
For Situations
Just get in the habit of observing everything around you.
Sit in a bus station or in a park or airport or other public venue. Check out the other people in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. What’s their story? Write it.
Six Days Left on the Easter Sale
Writing Better Fiction is 33% off until midnight, April 20. At checkout, add coupon code VCP2YKDNDD.
Any Omnibus Novel Collection is 33% off until midnight, April 20. At checkout, add coupon code 4ZNAIG7TDF.
About Your Morning Serial
A writer and reader sent the following in an email:
“Shades of Wes Crowley! This is heart-racing reading! I hope I’m up to date with my subscription! As usual, you hooked me on the first page!”
If you haven’t dropped by Your Morning Serial yet, it’s still early in the novel. You can read the first installment here.
Or you can find the full archive and catch up here.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
How to Use Ray Bradbury’s Noun Method To Generate Unique Story Ideas
The Fallacy of “Show, Don’t Tell” in Writing Explained a different way by a different writer.
Immutable Moments: The Load-Bearing Beats of a Story
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 630
Writing of “Silence. Ah, Silence”
Day 1…… 2754 words. To date…… 2754 done
Writing of Blackwell Ops 42: Sam Granger
Day 1…… 2873 words. To date…… 2873
Fiction for April……………………….. 51402
Fiction for 2025………………………. 317992
Nonfiction for April…………………….. 9530
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 91060
2025 consumable words…………….. 402542
Average Fiction WPD (March)……… 3493
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 8
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 19
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 112
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 289
Short story collections……………………. 29
Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.