In late October 2019, I desperately scoured the NaNoWriMo forums searching for creative inspiration ahead of November’s big writing event.1 At some point, I decided to write down as many ways to generate a story as I could think of. This was the result, which I just rediscovered in my notes.
- Steal the plot of another story
- Adopt a plot on the NaNo forums
- Combine a fairy tale with a different genre or time period
- Use the titles of an album or playlist as plot points/chapter titles
- Snowflake method
- Free write
- Fanfiction
- Based on real events
- Based on an interesting person you know in real life
- Use an alternative history
- Use a list of random words as plot points
- Write a sequel to an existing story
- Write a Coen brothers-esque story
- Take inspiration from a particular time period
- Take an existing story and change its style or genre
- Take an existing conflict from current events and switch up its details/style/genre
- Ask a series of what if questions
- Write a prequel or origin story to an existing story
- Use characters and events from previous, unfinished stories
- Write what you know
- Write what you don’t know
- Write what you wish you knew
- Based on a board game
- Based on D&D
- Use a writing prompt
- Make a list of 100 plot ideas
- Rewrite an existing story (original or otherwise)
- Write a Stanley Kubrick-esque story
- Write from the perspective of a dead historical figure
- Write about a character who’s traveling through different existing stories like the Energizer bunny
- Use the Writer Emergency Pack
- Use story dice (or whatever they’re called)
- Make up some different characters and then see how you can relate them to each other
- Turn a movie or TV show into a novel
- Write an original story story that takes place in an existing story’s world
- Look through old plot idea notes
- Turn your friends into characters in a story
- Turn a poem into a full story
- Turn a short film (like the ones from Dust on YT) into a story
- Based on a video game
- Based on an obscure/odd profession
- Based on a fictional profession
- Based on a fictional sport
- Imagine the villain is suing the hero or vice-versa
- Make up one-sentence story ideas
- Ask someone else what kind of story they would like to read
- Based on a particular aesthetic
- Based on Biblical stories or characters
- Write a fictional religious text
- Write a manifesto
- Write non-fiction
- Based on a comic book
- Based on a TV show
- Take the problems of one historical character and have a different historical character experience them
- Based on a web comic (eg, xkcd)
- Based on characters from popular toy franchises (eg, GI Joe)
- Write from the perspective of a journalist chasing a story
- Interview with hero
- Interview with the villain
- Based on a rare medical condition
- Based on a major catastrophe
- Take the villain (or hero) from one story and insert them into another
- Write about Donald Trump if he were in a different profession (eg, private investigator)
- Turn a Greek epic into a contemporary story
- Use a plot generator
- Use a character generator
- Draw a storyboard
- Pick different stock photos and relate them together
- What if a fact or assumption everyone agreed on turned out to be wrong?
- Write about an industry as if it were a different industry (eg, what if Apple and Microsoft were hospitals?)
- Use a selection of tropes as storytelling mechanisms
- Write about a weird or scary time in your own life
- Build a world first, then add the characters
- Build a detailed character first and then develop the plot
- Write about online communities as if they were IRL institutions (eg, Redditors Guild)
- Start with a visceral scene or concept and work outward from there
- Start with the ending and work backward
- Write some dialog between two characters with opposing wants and see if an idea is born out of that
- Start with a main idea/character/setting and mindmap out from there
- Use the life of an animal as inspiration for a story (eg, ants are like militant colonists)
- Start with a question and ask more questions
- Write about something you wish would happen
- Based on song lyrics
- Based on a sidekick to a popular hero
- Write about possible near-future events
- Write a short story first, then turn it into a novel
- Turn a play into a novel
- Create a story from a mad-lib-style template
- Create random characters from a generator and try to make a story with them
- Roll a D&D character (or two) and make a story out of them
- Write a story based on a published D&D adventure
- Write the plot of a Western into a modern day story
- Take the plot of a sci-fi and turn it into a Western
- Sit outside and see where your mind takes you
- Create a magic system or game mechanic and then build a story out of it
- Write a story where each chapter is based on a joke
- Create a character that has an obscure phobia
- What’s the scariest thing you can possibly imagine? Create a story about that
- Create a story that’s preachy about a particular religious or political point
- Create a series of short stories that are tied together by theme or setting or something else (eg, they all take place in the same world)
- NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is a writing event that happens every November. Writers all over the world scramble to write a 50k-word novel by the end of the month. ↩