Fiction Story Ideas: Where & How To Spark Inspiration?

Planning to write a book but you’re at a loss for story ideas?

Sometimes, an interesting idea might strike you all of a sudden. But at other times, you might go for days without inspiration.

Rather than waiting for inspiration to strike, here are some ways to inspire you as a fiction writer.

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1. Examine Your Favorite Songs, Books & Movies

Critically examine your favorite songs, books and movies. Identify the specific parts that you like about them. It could be some touching lyrics, the worldbuilding in the book or a romantic scene in the movie. Just list them down. Then, change this part to something different and it’ll be a new story idea for your book.

Personally, I think this is great for plot-driven stories. Perhaps, you really enjoy watching sci-fi shows and you really love the time travel concept. Since you’ve already watched and read so many movies and books related to time travel, why not write your own time travel book? From your tastes and likes, you definitely have the passion for the concept so writing the book shouldn’t be a problem since you’ll be writing what you love.

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2. Observe Fictional Characters, People Around You & Famous People

You’ll meet people from all walks of life as you grow up and network. Among them, there might be a few people that you remember forever. Perhaps, it’s someone you admire or someone that you find peculiar.

List down the traits that you love about them. They could be positive or negative traits. Now, put a person with these traits that you love in a different situation. It could be another country, a different era or a magical world. Or you could give this person something special like a magical ability to shapeshift, a device to travel to a parallel universe, an illness that his loved ones don’t notice. This will help you create an interesting character-driven story where this person becomes the protagonist.

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3. Study Your Surroundings

When you observe your surroundings, whether people, buildings, animals, plants or food, you might get some inspiration for your story.

They could be insights or lessons that you want to include in your book. Or they could spark imagination.

Let’s say you see a girl and you start thinking what if she got turned into an alien. Or you see some beautiful flowers and wonder what would happen if they could talk. These are all great ideas for interesting stories!

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4. Look At Your Personal Experiences

Sometimes, inspiration comes from within.

Whether it’s a positive or negative past experience, you can retell them in your book to empower or warn readers. By weaving your personal experience into your story, you’re essentially offering your own unique perspective.

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5. Think About The Key Theme & Message

Sometimes, rather than plot or character, you might want to focus on a theme or convey a message through your books. This could be a central unifying idea or an underlying belief, perspective or opinion that your story explores.

In this case, you could consider creating a mind map with this theme or message in the middle. From there, just throw all your ideas that you think will bring out this theme or message.

Of course, do ensure that the story will be interesting by adding conflicts or struggles.

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6. Schedule Imagination Into Your Life

Let your creative juices flow without restrictions. Silence your inner critic and ensure that your imagination is limitless.

You could create a never-before-seen mythical creature or a new type of power and ability that you think is interesting but no one has ever talked about. Don’t think of feasibility. Just let your creative juices flow. You can think of making this plausible later.

There’s no right or wrong here. It’s just whether you like it enough to create a story out of it. So sit down and just imagine. The key is to schedule this imagination time into your calendar. It could be as short as ten minutes every day.

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7. Capture Inspiration As Soon As It Strikes You

There are also times when inspiration strikes you when you least expect it. You could be showering, daydreaming or simply, dreaming. Even your nightmares could inspire you with some interesting story ideas.

At such times, I strongly encourage that you quickly jot your ideas down. It’s important that you don’t forget these fleeting ideas.

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Bonus Tip: Keep An Inspiration Notebook

I strongly recommend that you keep an inspiration notebook. You could include all the little ideas you thought of while showering or daydreaming. You could also review the books you read and movies you watched such as identifying the scenes, plot or characters that you like and why.

This way, when you need to write a story, you can flip through this notebook and be inspired. Perhaps, you could choose one idea or mix a few ideas together to create an interesting story.

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Now It’s Your Turn

Where do you find inspiration? How do you spark inspiration? Feel free to add on and share your tips with fellow writers~